


Three Missed Calls

by treasuredleisure



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Infidelity, M/M, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-05 01:10:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/717142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treasuredleisure/pseuds/treasuredleisure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Had Erik not realised, last night, what he’d just brought home?</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <br/><i>His thumb silently traces the circumference of his wedding band.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Missed Calls

 

Three missed calls, a briefcase embellished with holes, and unfeeling hands – frozen by the dreary weather London frequently offers.

 

Otherwise known as a typical Thursday evening.

 

Rivalled by the wind, the umbrella pole clutched in one numb hand sways forcefully. The damp material of the canopy smacks him square on the cheek. A stinging wet slap to end the day.   

 

He expects nothing less.

 

:::

 

It had been a Winter of juddering sobs and self-deprecation.

 

Sometimes it was too quiet, and the coldness of the bed they shared would have a louder cadence. Those were the nights when Magda would have fled to her mother’s house, and Erik would have to fill the empty linen spaces with his outstretched limbs.

 

And then sometimes, it would be cacophonic. The sound of her collapsing into tears over the gushing cascades of shower water, just after she’d stopped retching, would often be the noise that would greet him into the morning light. He’d known from then, as he’d brought the pillow tightly over his head, that there couldn’t be a sound worse than that of a woman mourning her deceased child.

 

It wasn’t until just a month ago that Erik had a blissful wakening – the dripping sound of rainfall residue, peeking through the fissure in the wall and falling as silvery droplets onto the carpeted ground. Magda had been sitting at her dressing table, tying dark ringlets into a neat bun as she swung her handbag over her shoulder. Before leaving for work, she’d peered up at the crack in the wall and dredged up a sigh for her husband to see.

 

“Erik, you’ve _got_ to get that crack fixed.”

 

He hadn’t been able to peel himself away from the bed sheets in time to chase her transformed mood, as she’d loped off into the corridor by the time she’d yelled to inform him of her shift’s end and had shut the front door before he could reply.

 

The better days started.

 

:::

 

Magda shares a relationship with her mother that even Erik envies. He wouldn’t dream of coming in between their bond, even when it meant letting Magda drive two hours across the city to rush to her mother’s aid. Erik had bellowed at her to stay, reminding her of how late into the night it was and the discernible fact that she was five months pregnant with their child. Obstinate as ever, she had argued that the baby was keeping her awake anyway, and that her mother was more important to her than what Erik wanted. When Erik had reluctantly offered to join her, she’d told him that she was probably going to stay for a few nights. Erik had an important meeting at the end of the week.

 

“You’d only get bored,” she’d explained, tugging a coat on as she fetched a scarf. Before Erik could climb out of bed and help her pack some clothes, he’d remembered that she kept many of her clothes in her mother’s house anyway. “Besides – I need her to help me deal with all the cramps I’m getting.”

 

“But you need me.”

 

Her shoulders sank. “And my mother needs me more right now than ever.” She’d leaned across the bed awkwardly to drop a kiss on his forehead. Erik smoothed a hand over the curved stretch of her stomach. He remained awake until she’d propped her handbag over her shoulder and walked down through the corridor. He’d wanted to ask her to stay once again, tell her not to overwork herself in her state, call out that he, too, needed her just as much—

 

But he’d kept stagnantly silent. By now, he knew better than to rile his pregnant wife. He’d read a chapter of one of her pregnancy books, read about how hormones could punctuate their emotions, _experienced_ the way her rage multiplied to the point of throwing dishes across the dining table.

 

He knew better than to point out how _secondary_ he felt to her, how significantly he felt as though he was competing with his mother-in-law for his own wife’s love. Hell, even his wife’s presence.

 

Looking back, he likes to let himself believe that the frequent negligence was the reason behind what happened that Thursday night.

 

He’s a helpless coward for appointing blame on a needy middle-aged woman, but then again, he’s never disagreed with that either.

 

:::

 

The vicious splash of feet falling into puddle after puddle brings him out of his reverie. Even with the persistent pelting of rain against his umbrella and a double-decker bus breezing by, he can hear a young boy desperately cry out for the large red vehicle to stop. While the bus continues to wheel away into the dark street, the boy comes to a defeated halt. Erik’s now aware of his presence – he can see his muddy shoes from beneath the rim of his umbrella, as he pants to catch his breath.

 

It concerns him in the least of ways, and yet he finds himself feeling bad for not even attempting to wave his bus to a stop.  Somehow, he feels worse when he turns around to look at the kid.

 

:::

 

He’d known Magda since he was twenty-three. Five years his senior, Magda had been working part-time as a waitress at his favourite café when he’d approached her for a date. Magda had coyly agreed to it.

 

The café had been just off campus of the University they’d both attended – Erik in his last year of studying Economics, and Magda with a Masters degree in Computer Science. She’d been his second relationship, and also the one he’d prolong to the altar. He was comfortable with her. Comfortable with her self-assured flare and her small, attractive frame – everything from her dimpled chin to her thick eyebrows. Erik liked how much he liked her. He liked making her happy and felt content with the idea of both being married to her, and starting a family with her.

 

So when he proposed to her, it wasn’t because she’d surpassed three decades and was complaining about being too old, or the fact that he wanted to settle down to a life of ease at the soonest possible time – it was because he genuinely loved her. He wanted to commit to her, father her children, and grow old with her. The chance of those desires changing were about as probable as the moon’s disappearance from the starred sky. He would spend the rest of his life with her because that’s what he’s promised and that’s what they both want.  

 

The moon still hangs in place above the point of his umbrella, and his intentions have still not changed a touch.

 

:::

 

The problems with the narrow streets of London are endless. Tonight, Erik can find far too many. He wishes this bus stop had seats and a sheltering roof, as opposed to just a lone stand with a dustbin. He also wishes the nearby lamp post didn’t emit a lustre of light capable of illuminating even the bumps and grooves in the dark asphalt. He wishes the boy standing haloed under its light didn’t look so endearingly dishevelled.

 

The rain patters down ominously on him, streaking his thin shirt transparent. The boy has a satchel hung diagonally across his upper body, and is clothed in black trousers that pool at his ankles and catch in the mud. He’s visibly shivering under the onslaught of the rain, clamping a hand over each elbow as his back muscles divulge.

 

Spotlights flash through the bleakness of the night and the boy turns abruptly, brightened and disappointed all at once when he notes that the impending rove of an engine belongs to a truck. The boy’s arms drop to his sides as he blinks up at the rain, and Erik must have simply _forgotten_ to expel the lungful of air cooped inside him because—

 

God, the boy in front of him is maddeningly beautiful.

 

:::

 

There have been no unforgivably drunken nights, no foolish decisions, and no humiliating regrets. Erik has barely suffered from the ramifications of his actions, having always been the best student in class, the only child to two loving parents, and the sweetheart to the one woman he can picture spending his life along side. His upbringing had been deficient of luxuries and brimming with affection, having been birthed to conservative Germans with a dream to raise their child in a more educationally accommodating country. Erik wanted to make them proud with the knowledge he garnered in school and the trouble he kept away from.

 

The fact that they have both passed away doesn’t change any of his motives. He still remains mercifully out of trouble and devoted to his wife. He has a quaint little home with a mortgage he can afford to pay. He has a career in finance and a good reputation amongst his colleagues.

 

He’s trying his best to rebuild his family and is even making an effort with his in-laws.

 

This dank Thursday night shouldn’t be making him question the past thirty years of his life and the outcomes of the next few.

 

:::

 

The boy’s bus probably won’t come again. Not at least for another hour and a half.

 

When Erik realises this, he nervously glances down at his polished loafers. He feels ridiculously sorry for the boy. He’s clearly freezing in his rain-soaked clothes and can’t conceal himself from the insistent downpour that’s still rolling over his skin.

 

 _Skin._ The boy’s skin is porcelain.

 

Looking back down at his loafers, he’s suddenly scared that the moon will no longer be in the sky. There’s moonlight emanating from that boy’s crestfallen face.

 

:::

 

Erik had built a crib.

 

He’d rifled through numerous catalogues until he found one that could satisfy Magda’s criterion. It arrived in a sizeable box with a booklet of instructions and planks of wood. The task was tedious and he’d almost broken his toe trying to nail the headboard, but the final product had been faultless. Magda had been floored. Erik could’ve sworn his wife’s brown eyes had glazed over with tears.

 

When they’d returned from the hospital, her eyes had landed on the wooden cot with a different set of emotions pouring from her eyes. Erik had only managed to drop the bags from his hold before he could bodily lunge forward to hold her back.

 

She’d rammed it into the wall and assaulted it to smithereens.

 

At that time, it wasn’t just Erik’s toe that broke.

 

:::

 

His dress shirt clings to his body like it’s the only thing that loves him. His teeth chatter, even when he clamps the top row over his bottom lip.

 

A bead of rain trails a wet streak from his temple, down his cheek, curves over his jaw and disappears beneath the collar of his limpid shirt.

 

Erik wants to cry. He shouldn’t have looked.

 

:::

 

It had been a girl. They’d mutually agreed on _Anya_ , first, and then nothing seemed more suiting after that.

 

She never breathed easy whenever Erik would glance at her through the case of the incubator.

 

:::

 

Erik shields him.

 

The boy looks startled when he stops feeling the rainfall. He stretches his neck to glimpse up at the roof of the umbrella.

 

He looks at Erik.

 

His own beige suit is damp from the shoulders and cuffs from when he had bolted out of his office building. Just yesterday morning he had shaved, the reddish-brown hair of his head still overgrown, and his wrist watch hangs heavy on the arm he’s not used to looking at first. He’s a constrained mess today, only suddenly glad for the cologne he had happily indulged in as an afterthought.

 

No hairstyle, and no fragrance can help him look adequate next to a boy like this.

 

“Th-Thank you,” he breathes, silently, almost like the sound of the wind. His eyelashes have clumped together in thick wads that frame a pair of eyes Erik immediately sinks into.

 

He nods, lips pursed tightly. The boy smiles weakly.

 

Erik is now drowning.

 

“Your, um – bus… your bus will probably come very late.”

 

He can’t find anything more interesting to look at, so he keeps his eyes stuck on the boy. Captivating as he is, the rain that dries over him gleams like strips of sea water on his creamy skin. The pitch black night burdens him, like it sees – it knows.

 

It knows how much Erik is willing to lose for the sake of sad, lonely blue eyes.

 

“I thought so,” the boy murmurs, arms curling around his thin torso. Then he sneezes.

 

“Are you really going to wait for the next bus?”

 

The boy swallows, rubbing a hand over his hair to flatten the wet curls that fan out on his forehead. His cheeks are tinted with a ruddy hue, and the longer Erik stares, the more he notices the tip of his nose catching on the same colour.

 

“I don’t know. It would take me two hours to walk—”

 

“Two hours?”

 

“—And then this weather is _dire._  I just… don’t know,” he concedes, shrugging his shoulders. He’s still shivering. The urge to coat him with warmth baffles even Erik with its immensity. The boy’s accent is native, as expected, but his voice is deep and dreamy. It would be impossible for Erik not to prompt hearing more of it.

 

“Isn’t there anywhere you can stay for the night? You’ll probably get a cold.” He’s kept his voice even – detached and yet kindly concerned, but as he hears the distant sound of his own small bus approaching, his stomach leaps. “Is there anyone around here you know?”

 

Glumly, he replies, “Only people I never want to see again.”

 

But it’s _so_ glum, and _so_ dejected, that Erik can hardly stop himself from blurting at the very moment the doors of the bus slide open—

 

“Come with me. I don’t live too far from here. My cat’s probably warming the sofa as we speak.”

 

The boy worries his bottom lip again, frowning with a shy smile in his eyes, but then follows Erik into the bus and Erik—

 

Erik is completely submerged in a gust of lathering relief. His heart thuds, facilitating the influx of adrenaline. He avoids the sky for the entire journey home, feeling only the heat of the boy’s appreciative gaze from where he sits behind Erik on the empty bus.

 

The eerie night judges him.

 

:::

 

“I’m Erik, by the way.”

 

The gravel of the driveway crunches in protest under their feet as they walk.

 

This boy must be really sad and lonely if he’s followed a complete stranger all this way. The bus stop isn’t a far distance from his small semi-detached house, so even if he wants to change his mind, he’d had to have done so sooner. It’s too late for him to turn around now, and even if he did – well, he’d be walking into his own ailment. The rain is ferocious and the boy is too pretty to be alone at this time.

 

But then, maybe the latter is exactly why he’s in Erik’s company right now.

 

“Charles. I’d shake your hand, sir, but I’ve – just – sneezed into it.”

 

Erik pauses from where he’s fishing his keys out of his pocket.The hand that holds his umbrella over them tightens as Erik rolls his head back to chuckle. He quickly quells the impulse to dwell further on how the one sentence alone has managed to make him feel so _old_ and the boy so _young._ Smiling meekly, the boy – Charles – sticks his hand out under the rain and decisively doesn’t offer it to Erik.

 

Sad, lonely eyes know how to smile so well.

 

The key twists, the tumblers mobilize, and the front door unlocks. Erik lets Charles first into his home as he folds his umbrella and watches the young boy walk inside. A nervous gratefulness radiates off of him. Erik is just glad, inexplicably, to see the poor boy walk into warmth.

 

A narrow corridor leads to another on one side, and the lounge to the other. The kitchen is adjacent to the living room with just a small dining table separating the two rooms.

 

The lounge consists of just one long couch, a coffee table, a television set that sits beside the fireplace, and now, Charles.

 

He’s dripping onto the rug, looking around him with a wry, almost unreadable expression.

 

Despite of it all, the first thing Erik does after he sets his briefcase down is reach for the cat. Lifting him off the surface of the coffee table, he perches him onto the couch.

 

“There. As promised.”

 

Then Charles relaxes a little. His shoulders drop and his eyes gloss with the earlier dazed gratefulness. He’s still drenched, though, and Erik’s chest swells with the urge to warm him, again, as he watches the young boy crouch next to the cat in interest, cold and wet and _so_ infuriatingly pretty.

 

“How about I fetch you some clean clothes? The bathroom is the room on the right.” The only other room in his house – it’s a comfortably confined space – apart from the master bedroom. He tries not to the think too deeply about his bedroom while there’s a young boy standing in his lounge with milky-white skin and far too many freckles. “I’ll get you a towel too.”

 

He shrugs off his suit jacket as he gaits to his bedroom to find a towel. They had purchased quite a profusion of soft, baby-friendly towels in anticipation of the new family member. There was no point in disposing of them. Erik swallows with difficulty as he plucks one out of the untouched batch and rummages through his drawers for a sweater. He finds a thick blue V-neck jumper and thin tracksuit bottoms. Erik can bet they’ll be too large on him, but he probably won’t appreciate wearing Magda’s clothes. Erik would hardly appreciate it either.

 

Returning with the pile, he walks into the lounge to find Charles extricating his bag from around himself and leaving it on the carpet, where he’s still crouched down.

 

“Will the couch be fine?”

 

The boy stands up to his full height and raises his shapely brows, looking like he’s been swallowed whole by incredulity. His head tilts and a soft, quiet laugh escapes his lips.

 

“ _Of course_ – of course the couch is fine. In fact it’s _more_ than fine, that – that you’re getting me clothes and giving me a p-place for the night and… being so kind and…”

 

Then his eyes glaze over with tears, and Erik bites down on the instinct to rush towards him and bundle him close. It’s dangerous, severely dangerous, that he can’t deem that sudden instinct as paternal compassion.

 

The brusque way he sniffles his tears away and clears his throat insinuates how desperately Charles doesn’t crave Erik’s pity. Perhaps just his understanding. His kindness. Even if just for this lonely, rainy night. So Erik takes the hint to appease him by saying,

 

“I’ll make you tea. You get warmed up.”

 

Then he leaves the stack of warm wool and cotton down on the sofa before retreating to his bedroom to get changed. On his way, he hears Charles sneeze.

 

Then apologise to the cat.

 

Erik grins.

 

:::

 

Erik knows how uncomfortable the sofa is. The memory of a night spent on its rigid cushions still leave a phantom pain in the wake of that awful episode back in March.

 

Magda didn’t even want to be touched after the death of their daughter. He’d earnestly insisted that they could try again. They could fill the void of their misery by trying again. And he’ll make it good for her, be gentle—

 

She’d erupted into hysterics and asked him to leave the room.

 

Sitting on the bed, listening to the sound of the tap gushing from the bathroom, he reaches for his phone and presses it to glow.

 

All of his missed calls are from Magda. She’s probably asleep by now. She’d taken the car, so she probably missed a lot of sleep during the ride.

 

_Sorry I missed your calls. Just got home – the bus was late. I’ll call you in the morning._

 

After he sends the text, he looks over it. He wonders if she’ll understand Erik’s justification for why he _just got home_ with a boy he’s attracted to by his side.

When Erik formulates one.

 

The storage cupboard spills with a thick blanket when he opens it. He brings along a pillow too, even though he can imagine the cat will not hesitate to mark its territory on it.

 

He’s pouring steaming water from the kettle into a teacup when he sees Charles emerge. In Erik’s clothes.

 

He sighs and concentrates hard on the tenuous swirl of sugar crystals as they dissolve into the searing liquid.

 

Holding the handle of the mug precariously in his hand, he stalks towards Charles, who’s sitting comfortably on the couch. He pats the folded blanket appreciatively, but doesn’t make a move to unravel it and rest. Erik sets the hot mug down on the coffee table.

 

The sleeves of his navy blue jumper cover his hands in entirety. The V-neck falls deep, exposing a triangle of his neck that Erik peels his eyes away from. Erik _has_ to peel his eyes away from.

 

The bottoms are on a whole new level of ill-fitting. Even with the waistband hiked up to his waist, the hems of each leg glove his feet completely, nudging away the inclination Erik had previously had to find him socks, too. For Erik to be content with something as trite as that is confounding. 

 

“Thank you again. Really, I—”

 

“Have your tea, Charles. Is there anything else I can get for you?”

 

“No,” he immediately pans, shaking his head. “No, absolutely not. You’ve done enough as it is.” He curls his hands around the mug and brings it towards himself. “I really can’t thank you enough.”

 

Erik shifts on his feet. He stares down at the patterns on the rug, a stray thread on his own night clothes, the short white hairs on his cat’s back. As if on cue, the furry mammal prowls forward on its paws and jumps up on the couch to seek Charles’s lap. When the brunet boy makes a surprised noise and lifts his arms to accommodate the cat, it curls its tail and collapses over his thighs. Suddenly, the tea is forgotten and the boy begins to fervently pet the animal as it purrs in delight.

 

“ _Hullo_ , little one,” Charles greets him, voice pitched high and enthusiastic as he runs his small hands over his soft fur. Erik scratches a non-existent itch on his neck and looks away.

 

“His name’s Neto,” he informs him. Pets – pets are a good topic of discussion, if he wants to keep his gaze determinedly averted from the boy’s red lips or the exposure of his skin. “He doesn’t like everyone. He’s a bit of a grumpy sod.”

 

But Charles isn’t deterred, is in fact unaffected, because Neto seems to _adore_ Charles. He lifts off him as he cranes his neck, getting the boy to scratch his chin further, until his approving purrs reverberate loudly through the room. His tail brushes the skin of Charles’s throat, and he giggles.

 

“Um. He had a partner. Called Fessor. He started losing his hair. Then lost the ability to walk, and died. Neto’s been a grumpy old sod ever since.”

 

“How tragic,” Charles comically gasps, turning his strokes more affectionate, as though sensitive of the creature’s mourning state. It’s astounding, how his entire household is mourning.

 

Erik is now backing away. His feet take him towards his bedroom at a languid, reluctant pace. He would’ve gone completely now, left the boy to sleep, but he’s stopped by his voice. “Do you live alone?”

 

Swallowing – and not with any ease – he re-enters the room to face Charles. The boy is looking away, overcome with bashfulness.

 

“I mean – I’d hate to be intruding. It’s already so rude of me to just _barge_ in without having asked you before, but…”

 

“It’s alright, Charles. You’re not intruding at all.” He takes a deep breath, puffing his chest, and holding that mass of air for a long while before he finally speaks. “My wife’s out of town. She’s gone to visit her mother for a few nights.”

 

To Erik’s surprise, Charles laughs: mirthless. He runs a hand over his face. His voice drops a few decibels.

 

“Of course you’re married.”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Nothing. N-Nothing.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Well, thanks again, I guess. For everything.”

 

“It’s alright. Good night, Charles.”

 

“Good night.”

 

“Good night.”

 

Oh.

 

:::

 

Erik doesn’t have many friends. It’s not something he’s worked on. But it’s certainly something his wife has picked up on.

 

Casually, during meals. Loudly, in emphasis of an argument. Hesitantly, with a hand placed over his own.

 

He does get the customary invitation to office parties. Sometimes even the pub for a drink after work, or a football match with his boss. Most of his colleagues – dating, if not single – would simply glance at him with pity when he’d reject their offers in favour of going home to his wife. The very wife who would then be absent from the house herself, leaving a note on the fridge,

 

_Out with my friends. Because I have some._

_Fix the crack on the wall, honey._

_xx_

 

:::

 

When Erik wakes up, there are a stranger’s clothes drying on the radiator of his bathroom, a stranger’s breath quietly filling the air in the lounge, and a stranger’s face mashed against his cat’s fur.

 

Sighing, Erik takes the empty mug from the coffee table and turns around one more time to look at his sleeping guest.

 

His soft skin is a pale contrast against the red pillow beneath his head. The red pillow is a close match to his lax lips.  

 

Swallowing, he finds himself succumbing to the unrelenting urge to pull the blanket higher up. For far too long Erik’s eyes have feasted on the patch of Charles’s shoulder that peeks out from above the blanket, where his blue jumper dips low. It’s so endearing, the way the boy’s skin is so shiny and bare and cream-coloured it’s almost _unreal,_ the urge to place fingers over it is _unreal—_

 

But it’s also disturbing. He’s a boy, just a young, lonely boy, who doesn’t even look like he’s superseded his teens just yet, and yet, he’s unconscious in his slumber, on a sofa in the house of a man he doesn’t even know. Nonetheless here he is, in clothes that aren’t his own. Sprawled on unfamiliar space. Baring a portion of his body.

 

Charles doesn’t know Erik. He may feel comforted by his kindness, but he doesn’t know anything about Erik. Erik could be lying about his marital status, could be drawing up the screen of deceit so he can secretly savour the company of an oblivious, innocent boy, whom Erik could _easily_ strip down and—

 

Panic tolls through him. His hand – his left hand – bereft of his wedding ring.

 

Within the next heartbeat, he’s dashing to his room and retrieving the golden band from his side table and propping it on his finger. Then he sits on the bed, suited and ready for work, just married.

 

It’s been four years to their marriage. He’s never once forgotten to put his ring on.

 

:::

 

Rain recommences. If it had stopped and restarted, or if it’s been consistent since last night – Erik wouldn’t know. All he sees is water dripping relentlessly from the crack in the wall. He hears the distant, muffled sound of pattering on the roof.

 

Erik squeezes the leather handle of his briefcase. He feels the glint of cold metal ringing his finger. With that reassurance, he feels ready to confront the boy. He must be awake, if the soft, cooing sounds are anything to tell by.

 

As expected, the boy is sitting with Neto resting contently on his crossed legs. His bag is exactly where it had been last night, and after a satisfying glance around the living room, he notes how everything is still in place. Though it’s not like they have anything that could spark the interest of a keen opportunist – and to put the weight of doubt on Charles seems bizarre to do, when clearly, the bets are on the likelihood of Charles sweeping Neto away with him. Charles grins down at him in earnest, and then looks up at Erik with an equally bright grin.

 

“Oh! Good morning.”

 

Far too jovial for a boy who had unknowingly bared his shoulder in front of a man he doesn’t even know. He’s lucky, Erik supposes, that he _is_ married, and that Erik _is_ committed to her. That temptation has only lurked, but has not leapt.

 

“Morning,” he says flatly. He pointedly looks down at himself, then at Charles. “I’m off to work.”

 

Which should prompt the boy to get up and go, thank Erik again, even avoid his name and regard him as _sir,_ but the boy’s glassy eyes drop down. He’s not looking at Neto – he’s looking down, drearily, into space. Erik only just manages to open his mouth before the boy erupts into a succession of sneezes. Neto uproots.

 

The impact of quaking sneezes move the neck of the jumper down again. Collarbone divulges. A freckle. Shoulder.

 

Erik looks away. He looks at the window. Rain pounds noisily, but serenely. In a very very different world, Erik would be hypnotised by that repetitive sound, as he sucked on the shape of that collarbone with his mouth.

 

Shuddering, he grits his teeth. He clenches his hold on the handle so he can feel his ring again, branding its presence into him.

 

The boy sneezes.

 

“So sorry,” he sniffs, though Erik doesn’t know if it’s directed to him or the cat. “I’ll leave, I guess, but thank—”

 

He sneezes again, and this time, Erik clenches both fists. If the boy doesn’t leave, then perhaps he will have to. Even if that means the boy could essentially trash his house and steal his cat before he goes.

 

“Don’t you have school to go to?”

 

Despite of his deliberately deflected gaze, he can see the way vividly blue eyes and red lips stiffen in his vision’s periphery. The boy adjusts the jumper around his shoulder and looks down at his folded hands.

 

“I go to _University,_ actually. I don’t – I suppose I don’t have anything to go to today. Just a horrendous workshop I can’t imagine being worth the trek.”

 

“You go – where? Oxford?”

 

The boy nods. Erik is looking at him now, intently, now finding out how red-rimmed his eyes are, how deep the lines under his bottom lids are, and even how pink the tip of his freckled nose is. Even his voice had sounded groggy. But instead of asking the question related to his state, he asks,

 

“How old are you?” with sceptically squinted eyes and bloodless fists.

 

“Twenty.”

 

Erik finds that unfathomable, so he raises his brows at the boy. The _boy,_ not the twenty year old man. God, no.

 

“Right. You’re twenty… _right._ ”

 

Charles slowly nods his head, chuckling lowly at how unconvinced Erik looks. Erik feels lied to, affronted even, but dismisses the subject.

 

“I think you might have a cold.”

 

Charles’s smile drops, and it makes Erik feel worse. He nods more rigorously this time.

 

“Definitely feels like it.”

 

“Well, um,” he says vaguely, turning his head to look at the window. He waves his briefcase up towards it and inclines his head. “I think it’d be a bad idea for you to leave now.”

 

“So you think it’d be a good idea for me to… stay?”

 

Erik sighs, keeping his face stoic and controlled. He really isn’t doing well to prove his age. Also, Erik doesn’t need to be reminded of what he’s backwardly implying.

 

“You’ve caught a cold. Haven’t you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Well.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Erik blinks and looks down at how innocent the boy’s surprised eyes are. If he was drowning before, he’s sinking now, residing somewhere in the bottom like a lodged anchor.

 

“That’s kind of you,” he quietly says. Then, once Erik has reached the door, he takes in a long breath and all at once, says, “I promise I’ll leave as soon as the rain stops.”

 

Erik wheels around and misses the opportunity to look at Charles’s sincerely wide eyes by instead, fixing his gaze on the wooden box atop the fireplace.

 

“Charles, do you play chess?”

 

“I – yes, I do.”

 

“Then stay.”

 

:::

 

The rain’s formidable drizzle is well avoided on the way to work. His bus ride takes him past one of the Oxford colleges, and reminded of the boy most likely sitting in his home, Erik indulges in a smile that is followed by a sting.

 

He hopes he stays. If any other is to see a soaked Charles in his glassy-eyed form, ill and lonely, they won’t be as generous as Erik has been. And plans to be.

 

Charles’s presence should be completely conventional, if Erik’s now to pronounce their comfort around each other the beginnings of a friendship. An innocuous, platonic friendship.

 

Besides - it’s not like Erik has ever been a homosexual.

 

:::

 

Do thirty year old married men even make friendships with students twenty years young? Does there always have to be an ulterior motive, or does Erik really want to play chess with Charles because he’s never had anyone else to do so with?

 

If Magda was at home, would Erik still have brought the boy with him? Magda would never oppose to Erik making friends—

 

But did Erik really invite a boy so youthful and worryingly beautiful with the intention of becoming his friend overnight?

 

:::

 

The rain doesn’t stop. It’s oddly, the only time Erik has wholeheartedly approved of London’s tempestuous weather. Thunder eagerly follows, and Erik is actually glad to be splashing through puddles as he darts out of the bus and strides towards his house.

 

The fireplace is lit.

 

:::

 

Magda isn’t coming home anytime soon. He’d rang her as soon as he reached work, keeping his voice calm and concerned for his wife, concealing the undertones of _there’s a boy in our house and I find him absolutely beautiful._

 

He hopes he makes a friend tonight. For Magda’s sake. For the sake of Magda’s mother, with whom she’ll be spending a few more nights until her health improves.

 

:::

 

Charles is sitting exactly where Erik had last seen him. Cross legged on the sofa, facilitating Neto’s weight.

 

Erik’s loafers clink against the tiles as he walks through the narrow corridor and stands at the doorway.

 

He feels nervous. His chest feels heavy, like his ribcage is expanding to accommodate his growing heart.

 

Charles is wearing his crisp white shirt from last night under Erik’s blue jumper. He’s still wearing his tracksuit bottoms, the excess cloth draping over his feet, looking warm and emblazoned before the orange flames coming from the fireplace.

 

The chess set is positioned on the coffee table, all the pieces set up.

 

A book is open and balancing on the boy’s knees by its spine.

 

Erik loosens his tie and puts his briefcase down.

 

“Hi.”

 

Charles looks up, eyes reflecting a lick of flame, skin flushed from the heat in the room. His smile is infectious, and as though even Charles knows how sublimely it blooms, he bites down on his bottom lip – supressing it a little.

 

“Hello.” His mouth opens as though he has more to say, but he bites his lip shut again. Rightly.

 

His hair has curled to frame sharp waves around his forehead. Orange-glazed blue eyes look electrifying against the darkness of his brown, floppy hair. Had Erik not realised, last night, what he’d just brought home?

 

His thumb silently traces the circumference of his wedding band.

 

“Are you feeling better?” he asks, divesting his suit jacket along with his tie. He notices the way Charles’s eyes flit down to Erik’s torso. His body heat intensifies. He could now be in competition with the fireplace.

 

“Yes, much better, thank you.”

 

“You look better.”

 

Then he flees to his bedroom, mechanically stripping his clothes on the way, and sits on the bed, staring at his wedding finger.

 

:::

 

With all thanks to Charles’s initiative, the house is warm, so Erik settles for wearing a t-shirt and jeans. He stalks into the kitchen and sees only a glass on the drying rack – everything else untouched since his morning coffee. Neto brushes his legs in passing, as he dips his head into his full bowl.

 

“Charles?”

 

“Yes?” he responds from over the top of his book.

 

“Have you eaten?”

 

“Um… not exactly, I thought I’d… wait…”

 

Erik folds his arms and keeps his gaze pinned on the boy.

 

“You fed the cat, but not yourself?”

 

“It’s – it’s not my house,” he mutters. “I thought it’d be rude to.”

 

“Have you taken any medicine?”

 

“I don’t have any.”

 

Erik huffs a sigh and opens the medicinal cabinet, rooting through it. He didn’t _really_ expect Charles to have consumed his food or acted upon his cold, but a part of him wanted Charles to have been at enough ease with Erik to have at least eaten. A person wouldn’t hesitate to prepare themselves a meal at their friend’s house – even if they only had a night’s acquaintance. People could fall in love in a single sight – couldn’t the same happen with two friends?

 

He finds some antibiotics and makes the two of them coffee as he comes into the living room, sitting on the chair placed thoughtfully on the other side of the coffee table. He looks down at the chessboard and finds his side occupied with the white pieces.

 

Following his eyes, Charles looks at Erik with a cheeky grin as he takes a precarious sip from the mug.

 

:::

 

It turns out that not even the advantage of going first could help the attack being executed on Erik. He scratches his chin and looks at the few pieces that are still putting up a fight on the board. He doesn’t even know what to do with them; his next move would undoubtedly put him in check. So he does it, if only to hear the smug syllable decant from Charles’s lips, now quirking in a smirk as he watches Erik’s fingers move in his favour.

 

“Check.”

 

Erik smiles and sits back in his chair.

 

“You’re good.”

 

It’s his third loss tonight, and he can’t say he feels inept – as much as one in his position should. The boy shrugs.

 

“I told you, I’m captain of the chess club in the Oxford Chess Society.”

 

“How prestigious.”

 

“Extremely. Should I pack up?”

 

“No. Beat me one more time.”

 

His eyes flicker away from the chessboard and meet Erik’s, wavering with disbelief.

 

“Is that a challenge? Or have you given up so soon?”

 

“It’s a dare. I haven’t given up just yet.”

 

Grinning, Charles eagerly repositions the pieces. Erik could watch him win forever. He feels mildly drunk on the boy as it is. The boy, and his impish smiles and beguiling eyes.

 

Erik knows that whenever he ducks his gaze to look at the chess pieces, he’s being studied. He knows because he does the very same when Charles casts his eyes down. He studies the way Charles puckers his lips and places two fingers at his temple when immersed in deep thought, strategizing. He studies the way he blinks at Erik’s movements and counters with seamless foresight. Erik may or may not be slightly captivated by the way Charles’s expression shifts, haughty coupled with guilty, as he’d seize Erik’s queen – and all Erik can look is utterly _fond._

 

“You should at least concentrate,” Charles quietly utters, when he takes Erik’s pawn, a mere two minutes after starting the game.

 

Erik blinks and begins to resent himself. He places his left hand in front of himself on the table. He clears his throat. The thunder and rain have both stopped. It’s so _goddamn_ silent.

 

“Do you live on campus?”

 

“Nope. I have my own place.”

 

“Ah. And what are you studying?”

 

“Genetics,” he beams. “You oughtn’t get me started on it. I’d never stop.”

 

Erik wouldn’t _dream_ of making Charles stop from gushing passionately about anything. The boy could talk about woodland climates and Erik would listen, attentively, with both his eyes and his ears.

 

Nodding, he leans forward to inspect his pieces. Charles will have an attack, or a defence, readied before Erik could even stretch his arm. This time, when he makes his next move, his left arm juts out. His ring gleams conspicuously.

 

Charles looks down at it.

 

“How long have you been married for?”

 

“Four. Four years.”

 

He nods. Charles could move his bishop and capture Erik’s knight with ease. But he doesn’t. He continues to nod absently.

 

“And… do you have any children?”

 

Erik hasn’t prepared himself for this question. He can’t stop the initial reaction: his throat constricts, his hands drop, and his eyes droop to a despondent, distant glare.

 

“No,” he says, voice hoarse. “I had a daughter, but – she died before she could live.”

 

“Oh, _god_ ,” Charles gasps, fanning his eyes shut. “I’m so sorry, I should never have asked, I should’ve just—”

 

“Why not?” Erik snaps. “It’s understandable for you to assume, is it not? We’ve been married for four years, we’re at that age, we’re fertile – why the hell should you be sorry? Should you be sorry for our grief? Should you be sorry because we’ve _tried_ and _tried_ and the _one_ time it happens, she’s too unhealthy to live? Is that your fault or ours? Is it not _MINE_?”

 

Charles’s eyes fly open at the same moment his mouth does.

 

“It’s… not your fault,” he whispers, swallowing the offence he has clearly taken. “You are a _good_ man.”

 

“You don’t even know me,” he grumbles, with a hint of reproach. He starts to haphazardly knock the chess pieces off their squares, experiencing inexplicable delight when his own piece would knock down one of Charles’s on its way down. “You know _nothing_ about me.”

Charles doesn’t know about the time Erik had resorted to becoming a coward in order to facelessly deal with Anya’s death. Charles doesn’t know about how many times Erik had derogatory things to say about his mother-in-law. Charles doesn’t know about all the times Erik has lied to his wife when he could’ve easily told her the truth—

 

“And yet, I can honestly say, that you are the kindest man I have ever met.”

 

His ardent words are suddenly accentuated by a shy touch to his hand. Erik stops hearing himself breathe, which he concludes as being fine, because he doesn’t want to miss the sound of the boy’s movements over the fire’s intrusive crackle.

 

The small hand meekly rests over the shape of Erik’s, cupping it, and instilling warmth, until Erik feels dizzied by the affection. The glowing atmosphere. The glowing _compliment,_ which he greedily absorbs and develops a strange affliction for. The cage of a hand curled over another roofs a captured black queen. The king lays obliviously fallen.

 

Erik retracts his hand, like the flames have suddenly migrated to Charles’s innocent skin. He feels the burn sharpen when his hand is his own and Charles’s face – when he finally, finally looks at it – is wounded.

 

Still, he speaks on, with eyes dipping down to look forlornly at the massacre of his previously proud standing pieces.

 

“You’ll make a wonderful father someday.”

 

And before Erik can make his deduction as to whether Charles’s words are a belief, or a simple estimation, he adds,

 

“I promise.”

 

:::

 

A throat as dry as his own is at this moment cannot be verbal without sounding weak, or defeated. Erik cannot bear thinking about how a boy, a young, lonely boy, can make him feel either or both.

 

He’s a little boy, Erik reminds himself – but not a child, still not to be excused. How _dare_ he make a promise of such intimate, _profound_ proportions? Does he even realise how _sensitive_ Erik is about the promise he’s so foolishly made? What does he expect, that children will magically sprout from a gaping hole in the sky and Erik will be enriched with the talents of fatherhood, just because of what he’s said? The boy, clearly, does not realise that for Erik to be a father – let alone be good at it – Magda would have to heal, and Erik would have to learn her all over again.

 

“Just – just,” he pinches the bridge of his nose, springing to his feet. A burnt pang pervades his body as the urge to get as far away as possible from the fire takes toll. “I’m hungry. Are you hungry?”

 

“Should I leave? Have – I’ve offended you, haven’t I?”

 

He can hear his voice, following him now, as he marches towards the kitchen, but he can’t see the eyes and emotion behind it.

 

“You must be hungry. You haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

 

“I,” the boy begins, sadly, and Erik spins around to look at him. “I’m starving.”

 

“I’ll cook something, and then—”

 

Erik brings his lips together, shattering his words with the silence of his halt. He doesn’t want to know the end of that sentence. He wants the boy to go, so he can be alone and honest when he tells his wife he was so. He wants the boy to stay, so they can be lonely and sad together.

 

Charles tugs on the sleeves of Erik’s jumper and nods, like he understands even a fraction of what Erik’s silence has implied. The boy knows nothing, Erik reminds himself, as he washes his hands at the sink.

 

“I only cook kosher. Is that alright?”

 

“You can make whatever you want. You don’t have to ask me anything.”

 

“Alright. Leek soup?”

 

Charles scrunches up his nose and Erik laughs as he dries his hands. Then they’re completely silent as Charles wordlessly stands and watches Erik make pasta.

 

:::

 

He’s cutting mushrooms with an absent mind when the blade crosses his thumb. Charles is right there in an instant, ceasing his stirring at the stove to grab Erik’s hand. He doesn’t even have time to feel embarrassed about the yelp of pain that had come out of him following the small gash, because the pain has suddenly stopped and has turned into something completely different. He feels a warm mouth around his cut thumb.

 

“What the _hell_ are you doing?” Erik says, furious, as he takes his hand back. “What – the – what – Charles, what did you just…”

 

He looks at his thumb, pink and glistening with saliva, and then to Charles, who he has to look away from just as quickly.

 

“I just… You were hurt, and I—”

 

“There are _plasters_ for that,” he interrupts, a little too angrily.

 

“It was just – I don’t know,” Charles concedes, his sad, lonely eyes dropping to scan the linoleum floor. He looks like he’s a beat away from bursting into sobs. Erik can still feel the hot dab of a tongue and the faint press of teeth. The pain is absent, like it’s never even existed. There’s just the throb of his loud pulse and slickness and it makes him _angry._

 

“Obviously,” Erik grunts as he runs his thumb under the tap. He’s unaware of the blood’s reappearance. “Nobody ever told you that’s a _disgusting_ thing to do, especially to somebody you barely know?”

 

The despondent eyes remain downcast. He props a plaster over the cut on his thumb and sighs. On second thought, Erik empties all of the chopped mushrooms into the dustbin. He moves towards the stove and Charles flinches away.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“Forget about it.”

 

“I’ll go.”

 

“You won’t. You’ll eat.”

 

“Why are you so kind to me?”

 

Erik grinds his teeth as he puts the wooden spoon down.

 

“Does it irritate you? Should I not be?”

 

“No – I mean, yes – no. It’s just that…”

 

“Charles,” he says, stepping towards him to put a hand over the boy’s forehead. This time he flinches again, but not away. He feels heat. “You’re still unwell.” He cautiously reaches for his hand, deliberately slow as though he’s asking for permission as he pulls up the sleeve and curves two fingers around his thrumming wrist. Thrumming, because the boy’s pulse is manic. “Alright. I’m sorry for snapping at you, just don’t… suck my blood or anything again. Go sit down and I’ll bring the food. Okay?”

 

Unwillingly slow, Charles nods and walks over to the lounge. Over the steam escaping the boiled pasta, he sees Charles sit down on the sofa, scribbling away inside a notebook.

 

:::

 

When the food’s ready, poured into two bowls and garnished too, because Erik is sorry enough to make that effort, Charles doesn’t even look up. He says it again: “Charles, the food’s ready.” There’s still no response.

 

Neto is striving to get into his lap, hair is falling into his eyes, but he continues to vigorously write with a frown creasing his face. Curious, Erik takes to the living room with stealthy strides and manages to seize the book from within Charles’s grasp.

 

A scandalised gasp escapes him as he leaps out of his seat, Erik far ahead with the book opened before his eyes.

 

“I _just_ want to see if you’ve written _Dear Diary_ ,” Erik explains as he runs into the far corridor with the book held in his hands. He can see a paragraph of Charles’s green italicised writing and smiles at the boy’s frantic approach.

 

“Give it back to me, _please_ ,” he beseeches, reaching for the book on the balls of his feet. He continues to breathlessly beg, hands clawing at Erik who stands cornered against the wall, amused.

 

“Just—”

 

“Give it back!”

 

“—A second, I’ll return it when I—”

 

“PLEASE, don’t read it! Give it back to me!”

 

“One second!”

 

Then Charles jumps him, tackling him onto the ground with breathless exertion and insistent pleading. Erik falls out of balance, stumbling down with the boy’s thighs clenched around his waist. Snickering, Erik holds the book up above his head and cranes his neck to catch a glimpse of the text as Charles begins to climb upwards, dragging his body up and stretching his arms.

 

“So it says—”

 

“ _No_ , don’t!”

 

“It says, ‘I wish I could—’”

 

Knees are jabbing into his armpits, a thigh pressed against his chest, and airy breaths fan the hair on his head. But it’s too late. They both stop struggling.

 

“‘I wish I could die.’”

 

Charles collapses, swallowing. He doesn’t even bother taking the book back once Erik’s arms go limp.

 

“Would you like to explain?”

 

Charles climbs off of Erik, tugging the blue sweater down his stomach and sitting with his back against the wall. He pulls his knees up to his chin.

 

“No. You had no right to read that.”

 

“True. But now I have. So tell me.”

 

“No. It’s none of your business.”

 

“I know. But I’ve read it, and know I’m obliged to do something about your death wish.”

 

Charles rolls his eyes, and suddenly, he looks _so_ young. Too young. Too young to die, with his dishevelled hair and pretty white skin. And his lovely smile. Someone ought to cherish this young boy before anything tragic could take its course. Even that thought makes Erik sad.

 

“You don’t have to. I want to die.”

 

“Why?”

 

“I have nothing – _nobody_ to live for.”

 

“And yourself?”

 

“I’m not worth it.”

 

Erik picks himself up from the ground and shuts the book. He moves to sit next to Charles against the wall. He props his elbows up on his knees and looks to his side, staring into Charles’s profile.

 

“So you don’t value your life.”

 

“I’ve no motivation to continue living.”

 

“That’s different.”

 

“I doubt it.”

 

“There are people who would die for you.”

 

“There are only people who do anything for me to die.”

 

“… Explain.”

 

“My stepfather and his son would like to inherit my parent’s fortune, which I am entitled to receiving when I turn twenty-one.”

 

“Do you hate them?”

 

“I despise them.”

 

“So… you’re going to leave the people you loathe a _fortune_ , instead of taking it for yourself, building yourself a life and doing good with the money?”

 

“I don’t think I can do any good.”

 

“You’re a pessimist, you know that? There’s lots of good you can do. More than your stepfather and his son can, surely.”

 

“Perhaps,” he shrugs. “But I have nobody here to share my _wealth_ with. I’ve no siblings, no friends, and no, you know, partner. Oh, but I do have lots of debt to pay off.”

 

“Do you have a job?”

 

“No.”

 

“How do you afford rent?”

 

“I had some scholarship money leftover from when I did my undergraduate. But it ran out last month, and I—”

 

“You what?” he prompts, but Charles has gone completely still. His jaw is taut, a noticeable line piercing through his cheek. “What happened?”

 

“I talked to my landlord about how I couldn’t pay him that month and he said it was okay if he spent the night with me.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Yes. I hate myself. So much. And I know you’re judging me for it…”

 

“I’m not. You can do whatever you want. You’re old enough to. But just… it’s dangerous, that’s all.”

 

“We used protection.”

 

“You know what I mean.”

 

“I know. I won’t do it again.”

 

“Look for a job.”

 

“I will.”

 

“I’ll help you. Make yourself a CV. With references. I’ll try and get you something.”

 

Charles gives the floor a weak smile. Erik shifts closer to him. Their knees meet, but the contact is there for reassurance.

 

“If you and I were friends, would you value our friendship?”

 

He nods. It’s sufficient.

 

“Is it worth living for?”

 

Charles looks up at Erik and opens his wide red mouth to speak, but only a soft sigh comes out.

 

It’s sufficient.

 

:::

 

They peel their bodies off the floor and return to the warmth of the living room. Charles silently puts his notebook away and Erik places his bowl of food in front of him on the coffee table. Silently, they eat until the bowls are empty – Charles finishes first and shyly nods his head when Erik offers seconds – and eventually, eat until the cooking pot is empty.

 

Charles even licks his fork clean, which satisfies Erik in ways he can’t even articulate.

 

“You cook really well. Did your wife teach you?”

 

Erik feels the satisfaction sweep away into a darker part of his mind.

 

“No. She can’t cook. I do all the cooking. Funny, considering we met at a coffee shop where she served food.” It’s not really all that funny at all, or ironic, but Erik had been nervous and worded the first thing that came to his mind. “I learnt from my mother.”

 

“I see.” Then there’s a quiet hum, until Charles says in a pensive tone, “She’s awfully lucky to have you.”

 

Before Erik can debate or blush dramatically, Charles takes his bowl and escapes into the kitchen where he cleans both their dishes. Erik would’ve protested to that if he wasn’t busy setting up the chess pieces again.

 

Charles will just have to stay.  

 

:::

 

“Aw, come on, you let me win.”

 

“I didn’t. I swear. You beat me this time.”

 

Then Neto jumps up on the coffee table and sits atop the empty chessboard, curling its paws and tail underneath itself. Charles lets out a giggle.

 

He then scoops up the cat and pets him in his lap. Erik has never felt so much envy towards a bloody animal in his life.

 

“Well,” Erik pipes up, rubbing his palms up and down his thighs, “Time to sleep?”

 

“Um…” Charles puts Neto down, who clings to the cotton of his pyjamas with his claws until he’s carefully plucked out, “I should probably go, then.”

 

“At this time?” Erik looks at his watch. “It’s ten.”

 

“That’s fine, I can go,” he says, standing up and walking towards where Erik is on the sofa, until Erik catches his wrist and stops him. He practically _feels_ his pulse bolt, which is perfect, because it allows him to say, “You’re still not well.”

 

“But… I told you I’d leave when it stops raining, and it’s stopped raining.”

 

“I don’t have friends either. Stay.”

 

Charles visibly falters, his tense form relaxing into a full-body sigh that ends his resistance to Erik’s delicate touch around his thin wrist. Unhanding him, Erik places his right hand back in his lap and slumps his shoulders in relief when the sofa shifts with Charles’s weight.

 

“Wait till you see my Star Trek collection. Just you wait.”

 

They get through an episode before Charles falls asleep, his head leant innocently against Erik’s strong shoulder.

 

:::

 

The thing is, Erik loves Magda, and Magda loves Erik.

 

But that night he dreams about somebody else’s skin, somebody else’s lips, and somebody else’s sad eyes.

 

:::

 

Erik somehow manages to blink awake while it’s still dark. The fireplace is still on, blazing a wild, unruly orange as the wax candles on the coffee table melt drearily to its volition. 

 

They’re Magda’s favourite, vanilla and lavender scented, and Erik would save them if he wasn’t quite so comfortable. He’s sweating though, and when he shifts his arms he feels the perspiration covering his face. He’s still in jeans, which is odd. He’s also not in his bedroom, which is bizarre. It’s strange enough that there’s a body draped over his legs and his torso, far too weighty and warm to be Neto—

 

“Magda?”

 

Eyes blink up at him from the head that’s resting on his waist, but they’re shiny and blue and sad, lonely eyes.

 

“Charles,” he corrects him in a shaky whisper, slowly raising his head off of Erik’s stomach.

 

Again, Erik is left wondering what it is he’s brought home.

 

Charles extricates himself from over Erik’s side, where he’s laid his body horizontally over Erik’s long, lean frame. He feels gales of empty dissatisfaction when the boy’s warmth leaves him.

 

Erik pushes himself up with a hand braced against the sofa’s arm. It’s his left hand. They both look at the ring that gleams just as bright as Charles’s eyes.

 

The cushions shift, the cat falls to the floor, and Charles rises to stand to his feet. He hears him rustle with his bag and stomp across the lounge rug. The bathroom door creaks open and Erik can hear more items stuffing and shifting over the sound of the fire’s warm fizzle.

 

Another, thicker door is opened and closed, and it’s not long before Erik is following the lonely boy, socked feet padding away in desperate search.

 

:::

 

One lonely man seeks another.

 

Charles is suicidal. Charles is lonely, sad, and willing to use his body. It hurts, and Erik can only hear a replaying litany of Charles’s morose voice saying his own name in that grievous tone, looking far too keen to get away from whom he had indirectly claimed as being his friend. In an attempt to dispel the endless loop of sadness filling his mind’s ear, he shouts Charles’s name as he steps unfortunately through puddle after puddle. He reaches the bus stop and sees Charles, arms closed around himself as he waits for a car to pass the street.

 

Erik sprints. The door of his house is gaping open, it’s two in the morning, and _thank GOD another car is coming—_

Then he sees Charles walking forward and it’s too soon for Erik to calm his shredded nerves and slow his pace, because the car hasn’t even _passed_ yet.

 

“Charles!” he beckons, throwing his body forward with all his strength to capture the boy into his open arms. Charles stumbles backwards, the car hoots and cruises away without even a swerve in the wrong direction, and Erik’s feet land in a muddy puddle. “You crazy, crazy boy! What the _hell_ is wrong with you?!”

 

Protected in his arms, the boy sobs, but doesn’t writhe away from Erik’s hold. Erik tightens it. He can’t see the boy’s face from where he’s seized him from behind, but he can feel the teardrops against his own cheek when he presses it against Charles’s face.

 

“Don’t do that again,” he whispers directly into his ear, voice wavering from the aftershock of his panic. “Don’t ever do that again. I swear to God – don’t you _dare_.”

 

Erik’s one arm remains to tightly enclose Charles within it while the other snakes over blue cotton to find the boy’s wrist. He feels a soaring pulse and feels the intermittent jump of it. It’s like music to his ears, no matter how rapid it is. That can be fixed. He kisses Charles’s cheekbone. It makes a loud sound. They both shiver. Charles’s pulse slips into an even quicker pace. 

 

He kisses his cheek again, and this time his lips linger, his nose traces a delicate line, and his eyes fan shut. Charles’s cries stutter and stop, he only gasps as he feels Erik clasp him tighter and walk him closer to his own body. When Erik is about to indulge, headily, into another kiss of the boy’s soft skin, Charles is moving away. But it’s a movement within his arms, and now Charles is turning his body around to look at Erik. He ducks his head to smother the wetness of his tears against Erik’s shoulder before he looks back up at him, with eyes too many shades away from this world, away from feasibility.

 

Then Erik kisses him again, this time on the forehead, as he re-establishes a tight grip around the boy. Erik wets his lips and kisses Charles’s cheek again, the cheek he hasn’t explored just yet, and lets his mouth drag along the curve of his freckle-dotted cheekbone. Charles gasps, and the hands clenching his t-shirt open up to move around Erik’s neck. Then they’re hugging, Charles’s bag falling to the ground, as their bodies meet in a line that points directly to absolute and utter devastation.

 

:::

 

Erik retrieves Charles’s bag from the ground and loops an arm around his shoulder as they turn to go back inside the house, where there’s more light than just the streetlamps, as beautiful as their lustre makes Charles look. The boy is silent, though, as they walk back inside the house. As Charles walks in, Erik pauses at the doormat to take off his dirty socks. Charles chuckles and takes the bag from Erik, passing him a ginger smile that soon emulates itself on Erik’s face.

 

After closing the door behind himself, Erik heads for the bathroom. He looks in the mirror for a long, long time, assessing his reflection. For a moment, he dismisses the flurry of his thoughts – Charles, Magda, Magda’s mother, Anya – and thinks about the man staring back at him. There’s a softness in his eyes, a parallel to the bloom of gentle emotions unavoidably springing in his chest. He runs his fingers over his mouth and can sense, through the buds of his fingertips, the way he yearns for the petal-soft sensation of skin that doesn’t belong to the woman he’s married to. But then, this ripe new storm of softening affection has a root that doesn’t lead to his wife, either.

 

Growling inwardly, he squeezes his eyes shut as he douses his face with more cold water. He leaves the light on when he exits the bathroom in search of Charles, who is, as expected, sitting in the lounge with Neto spread over his thighs. Erik stands at the doorway and watches the boy for a while. Neto buries his head into the crook of Charles’s hand and kneads his paws into Charles’s legs. He shifts the cat as he lays down on his side, trying to tuck his body into the column of the sofa’s cushions. Erik chooses thence to make his entrance.

 

“Are you comfortable?”

 

Charles’s head perks up as he looks at Erik. He walks closer to him until he’s kneeling down in front of him. Charles pulls himself up as Neto prowls about for purchase on the boy’s shifting legs. As always, Neto crawls away from the moving surface to make himself comfortable elsewhere.

 

“I – I’m fine. Thank you.”

 

“Oh. Okay. Well, um, there’s, uh,” he scratches his head, scrabbling for words. “There’s space on my bed.”

 

“Right.”

 

“You can sleep on it. With, me. But not like – not in a… you know.”

 

“I think so.”

 

“So, would you like to come?”

 

“You won’t mind?”

 

“I won’t.”

 

“I won’t leave, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

 

“I’m not.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Yes.”

 

When he reaches through the space, he’s found Charles warm hand. He’s clasps onto it nervously and gives it a gentle yank. Charles complies and follows him.

 

:::

 

Their bedroom isn’t decorated with much. It’s Spartan, the way both husband and wife like it, and so only stocked with necessities. Charles is sitting on the bed, staring at a framed photograph of Erik and Magda on their wedding day. They’re facing each other with covered smiles and promises of forever.

 

“Would you like something lighter to wear to sleep?” he asks Charles, vacantly, as he roots through his cupboard in search of his own nightwear.

 

“N-No I’ll just take my shirt off. The jumper’s fine. Thank you.”

 

Erik changes out of his sweat-soaked t-shirt and puts on another, staying topless for as little time as possible, even as he wonders if Charles is watching him. When he turns around, he notices that Charles is staring. Then he flushes a rosy red and looks down at his hands. Erik smirks and takes his jeans off, changing quickly into comfortable cotton pyjamas similar to the ones Charles is wearing. Usually, when the house is this warm, he sleeps naked. Or, he at least takes his boxers off. He does neither tonight.

 

“I’m sorry,” Charles whispers, when Erik is sitting down on the other side of the bed, taking his watch off. Charles turns to face his back as he repeats his apology in earnest.

 

“For what?”

 

“For what just happened. It’s not like I don’t value our friendship - I do, but don’t you think if it became my reason to _live_ it would become so much more?”

 

Erik drops the watch on the bedside table and turns his body to face Charles.

 

“Do friends stare at each other when they’re getting changed? Do they… do this?” Erik accentuates his words with a kiss to Charles’s hand, as he takes it into his own and presses it to his mouth. When Charles’s lips part, Erik looks down at the bed. The bed he had last shared with his wife. He’s changed the sheets since then. He sees Charles’s shadow now, overlaying the patterns. “I can’t. Charles, I can’t.”

 

“Can’t what?”

 

“Torture myself.”

 

His hands move to grip the hem of the blue sweater, which he folds upwards and pulls off. Charles’s Adam’s apple moves as he swallows. Erik works on each button of the shirt he had first seen him in, wet and alone and disappointed, and doesn’t look at the silver of skin exposed until the entire shirt is off. Taking a long breath, he peels the shirt off, down from shoulder to wrist. It’s too dark to see freckles and blushes. Erik brushes a hand down the boy’s chest. He’s soft, body unmarred and hot, but Erik reaches for the jumper and arranges it back over his head and Charles silently lets him. Erik covers up the lines of his torso, the darker points of his nipples, and the delectably smooth surface of his skin. Erik pulls the jumper over him and leans away, depositing his wedding ring on the bedside table before he lays down on the bed.

 

Charles mirrors him. They look at each other from the distance between them, eyes scanning over every surface visible by the dim light. Erik sighs and shifts closer to Charles. Charles does the same, relaxing his body into the mattress. Erik pulls the comforter over them both. When he moves it around Charles, he keeps his arm lain over Charles’s waist. It doesn’t move from there until the moment Charles comes closer to bury himself against the shape of Erik’s body.

 

:::

 

Erik has never been attracted to men before. To Erik, the fact that he does, in fact, find Charles incredibly attractive does not mean that he finds _all_ men attractive. It’s a slip too deep that he’s now found himself in bed with the boy. It must have been much, much more than just an attraction if this is the status quo. He wouldn’t find himself in the same situation if he’d seen a girl he found attractive, standing at that bus stop. Is it because his feelings for Charles would be easier to fabricate? Magda isn’t even that stupid. They’d tried being friends for an hour.

 

Now Erik’s spooning him, his arms bound tightly around him like he’s about to run back into the path of a car, with their hands clasped together in an intertwined jumble of fingers; Erik’s hands are long and lined with the years of his age, whereas Charles’s are pale and dough-like, flesh as young as his youth. They must bruise so easily.

 

He gives them a squeeze and soaks up their warmth. He shifts his head across his pillow until his mouth is ghosting at the nape of Charles’s neck. He looks at the crack in the wall. He looks at the time, informing him of the afternoon’s imminence, and then he goes back to sleep. The sound of Charles’s steady pulse lulls him every time it thuds against Erik’s wrist bone.

 

:::

 

He wakes up enveloped in far too much warmth and sweetness. There’s a tender finger caressing every plane of his face, as though a rose is being smoothed over his skin. He can’t imagine having to wake up differently ever again.

 

A thumb traces his brow over and over. The sound of breathing fills his ears closely, and when Erik shuffles forward, he can feel the gentle rush of air wafting towards him. The thumb then resumes its thoughtful strokes.

 

As much as Erik would prefer to silently bathe in the outpour of Charles’s affection, he opens his eyes, keen to see the face in his dreams looking back at him.

 

“Hello.”

 

Charles buries his head back into the pillow, quickly withdrawing his hand and folding it underneath him as he hides his face. Erik grins when he sees the dimple indenting Charles’s cheek as the boy smiles uncontrollably. Instantly, he decides that Charles is best like this. Hazy and soft with sleep, blushing and shy and happy and adorable, and very bad at hiding it all.

 

“You were checking me out. While I was asleep.”

 

Charles turns his head to the side, arms folding over his head to block his ears. He lets out a coy gush of laughter and Erik’s mouth breaks into a larger grin. He moves closer to the boy, deliberately crawling over him with one leg on either side of him. Charles goes still underneath him, the neck of the jumper dropping invitingly low around his shoulder. Natural light generously illuminates all of the freckles Erik could ever imagine wanting to see. He could count them all, name them all, seek them out with his tongue.

 

“You so _were_ , weren’t you?” he teases, his fingers moving down beneath the covers, beneath his own body, and walk over Charles’s skin, tickling him. He giggles, thrashing his head from side to side as his red mouth falls open in unrestrained laughter. His fingers travel up his flanks and he watches him, amused, as his mop of hair spills askew all over the white pillow. He becomes breathless very quickly, his face going red, and Erik stops to catch his own breath. The jumper has stretched down to his arm and Erik literally _sees_ the blush arise, painting the slope of shoulder a tantalising pink. It drives Erik mad.

 

Charles’s blush amplifies when he whispers out,

 

“It’s just that… you’re so handsome.”

 

Erik’s heart flutters a little. He hears it a lot, to be honest, and more often than not it’s just an offhand comment from an aunt. But this time, it will become an ingrained memory held up to high esteem. Emitting a blush so honest of his admiration, Charles smiles down at his finger as it plunders inside his mouth, a smile spreading over his face. Erik moves his wavy hair from his face so he can see the boy clearer. His finger runs over his bottom lip absently as he lets Erik brush his hair to the side. Unable to resist, he reaches down to place a kiss on Charles’s cheek. He bites down on the finger in his mouth, blue eyes sliding shut – like he expects more. Erik _gives_ him more, pressing a kiss on his hot neck, then moving to repeat the kiss on the curve of his shoulder. With so much of it on display, he can hardly resist the urge to close his mouth over its seductive arch and _suck,_ languidly, then bite a bruise that’s urgent and unforgiving and indicative of his despair. When Charles makes a guttural noise around his finger, then drops his finger and simply gapes, Erik feels a mountainous surge of guilt drive him to kiss and lick the bruise, cajoling him.

 

He whispers an apology and rolls away, sliding onto his back. He looks from the bruise to Charles’s knitted brows as he prods the mark with careful fingers and hisses. Charles hastily pulls the sweater up to cover it. Erik swallows.

 

“Sorry – I just… I got carried away.”

 

Charles nods, flipping his head to face the other wall, away from Erik. He leans forward to kiss the bitten spot over the cloth of his jumper, but Charles doesn’t respond.

 

“Did I hurt you really bad?”

 

“I feel as though you will.”

 

“Charles this is not easy for me. There’s… anger in me, you have to understand.”

 

“It’s not easy for me, either,” Charles scoffs. Erik realises that he’s staring right in the direction of the photograph. Erik looks at it too, clenching his teeth tight enough to make his jaws sore.

 

“I – I _look_ at you, and you drive me _insane,_ you— I can’t _stand_ you. I just want to touch you and—”

 

Erik shuts his eyes. He hears the bed creak as Charles turns. Unbelieving eyes set on him, boring into him with their bold blue, as soon as Erik opens his eyes again.

 

“—And that makes you angry,” Charles finishes off, slowly, composing himself.

 

“It makes me angry.”

 

Charles turns back around again, facing the photograph.

 

“Four years is a long time.”

 

It’s all that’s said between them, before Erik leaves the bed and heads for the bathroom.

 

:::

 

Erik is balancing on a ledge. If he continues to cautiously put one foot before the other, arms outspread, he would be doing so for a very long time, arduously, laboriously, until his limbs ached with fatigue. He can’t even see his destination. All he knows is that this is the _right_ way – if not, why would there be a ledge leading in that direction, and why would he even be on it in the first place?

 

When Erik dares to peek below the ledge, he sees it. Bliss.

 

Clouds.

 

He could free fall, and he’d be safe, but where would he be? Eventually the clouds will disappear, and then where will he go? How will he find the ledge again?

 

Will he just have to fall and find out?

 

:::

 

He juts a hand out to sweep it over the mirror and clear it. A strip of his reflection shows him his freshly-shaved face and his rested eyes. He wraps a towel around his hips and leaves, steam exuding in his wake.

 

Charles is sitting on the bed with his back against the headboard. His head rests on his knees. Erik can’t see the bruise, but he can most definitely see pain.

 

“I have a few things to sort out today,” Erik says as he rummages through his drawer for underwear. “I shouldn’t take longer than two hours.”

 

He slips boxers on and turns to look at Charles as he heads towards him. He stands in front of the taller man and lifts his arms to hold Erik’s waist in a short hug before he releases, leaving Erik disappointed.

 

He’s gripping onto his white shirt.

 

“Charles?”

 

“I’m going to leave now.”

 

“You’re going to get washed up.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Then you’re going to stay.”

 

Erik turns around and scours for a dress shirt in his cupboard.

 

“What?”

 

“I said,” Erik spins back round, shirt hanging off his arms as he sprays himself with deodorant. “You’re going to stay. When I return, you’re going to be here. If you want, that is.”

 

Quietly, Charles says,

 

“Do you realise what you’re asking? _Really_ asking?”

 

Erik’s hands drop. He gazes down at Charles and submits. Submits to sad, lonely eyes, the bruised shoulder with his teeth’s indents, and the joyous smile that Erik wills to create. Only Erik. For as long as he can.

 

“Yes,” he breathes. “Yes, Charles. Yes. I want you.”

 

“You want me to stay.”

 

“I want you.”

 

He reaches for the boy’s wrist. His fingers feel the vibrations of his pulse and treasure it, raise it to his mouth and kiss along it, until he reaches Charles’s palms and flips his hand over to kiss his knuckles. Charles just watches, his shiny, ethereal eyes following each movement with ardent interest.

 

He’s too far fallen.

 

:::

 

Erik leaves when he hears the sound of shower water dripping vastly against the ceramic ground.

 

He returns to the sound of a hideous shriek filling out the walls of his house.

 

:::

 

“I’m so sorry – I’m so sorry…”

 

“What _happened_?! Charles, what—”

 

“Somebody _came in,_ they just broke into the house and—”

 

“Okay,” he exhales, heart hammering. “Okay.” He runs back to the front door and glances around, finds nothing and nobody, and then shuts the door. The lock is still sturdy and clicks rightfully into place. Erik returns to Charles, who’s curled up on the ground. There’s broken glass next to his feet and a smear of blood staining his arm and forehead. “Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

 

“Just… a little. Not much. I’m okay. But the man, he got away.”

 

“Charles just tell me that you’re unhurt.”

 

“I’m okay. I’m sorry.”

 

Erik kneels down and carefully takes Charles close to his chest, muffling his frantic breathing with the material of his jacket. Charles clings to him, chanting apologies.

 

“It’s fine, Charles. Calm down.”

 

“Somebody came in. They came in and scrambled through your things. When they saw me they – they tried to—”

 

“They what? Did they hurt you?”

 

“Sort of. But it’s not that bad. I retaliated.”

 

“And then?” he removes Charles from his chest and sweeps his hair off his forehead.

 

“The man ran away. _Ow_.”

 

Erik takes his hand away in an instant, frowning at the boy’s features as they contort in pain.

 

“They d-didn’t take anything. I swear,” he says through shut eyes and pursed lips. Erik sighs and lifts Charles to his feet.

 

“I don’t care, Charles. You’re okay. That’s all that matters.” He steps over a broken box that had contained old receipts in it, all of which are now dispersed around the floor. The burglar must have been sorely disappointed. “Come on.”

 

“Aren’t you going to call the police?”

 

Erik ignores Charles’s suggestion and continues to lead Charles towards the bathroom. He sits him down on the ground with his back against the shower cubical and moves his hair behind his ears again.

 

“You didn’t answer my question.”

 

“I… I won’t.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because. I can’t.”

 

“You can. The man was wearing a ski-mask over his face but I remember what clothes he was wearing. He was about my height and had gloves on.”

 

“He didn’t take anything.”

 

“Still!”

 

“I said, I can’t, Charles. I can’t. Try to understand. I’d have to tell Magda _everything_.”

 

Erik furiously rifles through the medical box he finds and unearths a tub of antiseptic cream.

 

Charles’s face is hanging low when he looks down at him. There’s a red stain on his knee, too, which Erik immediately investigates.

 

“Where are you hurt?” he asks as he pulls the leg of Charles’s bottoms up his leg. He’s still wearing Erik’s. His bottom lip is protruding a little in a pout. Erik’s hands uncover a cut on the boy’s knee. “Glass?”

 

Charles nods.

 

So Erik clears the wound and places a large square plaster over it, surprised even at his own gentleness. He should be riled – his house had been broken into, his belongings are scattered around from one room to the other, and it’s all happened for Charles to worry about and deal with. Much worse could’ve happened if Charles wasn’t here, but it’s not the damage he’s worried about. He’s not worried about how he’ll fail to alert the local police of an attempted burglary. He’s worried about Charles and the purple contusion on his forehead and the small lines of tension between his eyebrows and the way he’s barely uttering a _word_ to Erik.

 

“Charles,” he begins, voice even as he unscrews the lid of the grey tub and scoops up a dollop of the cream. “I can’t tell Magda. If the police find out, then she will too. She’ll needlessly panic about it and then so will my mother-in-law. And then you’ll have to be involved as a witness and – how would I explain that you were in my home and…”

 

Charles just nods his head again. His hair is still a little damp from the shower. Erik had, after all, only been gone for an hour. He’d sprinted home. He couldn’t bear not seeing the boy. His errands could’ve taken a backseat. His eyes implored for the chance to see Charles again. His heart ached to be reassured of his presence.

 

He also couldn’t call Magda while Charles was in the house. He’d done it from inside the Post Office, all of his greetings coming out in a wobbly voice. He’d said everything at home is fine. _No, honey, I’m alone._

 

Erik tentatively rubs the cream into the patch on Charles’s forehead as his head falls back. Erik can still feel how hot his skin is. He hasn’t cooled down at all.

 

“Have you eaten?”

 

“No.”

 

“ _Charles._ ”

 

“Ouch.”

 

“Sorry.”

 

He resorts to using his thumb instead. When he sees a plaster on his hand and switches his hand, he notices what his left hand is deficient of.

 

He ignores it.

 

He remembers Charles’s bruised shoulder and scoots closer to inspect it.

 

Erik pulls down the neck of the blue jumper that Charles is still wearing and finds the bruise. He groans in pain when Erik applies the cream on it, thumb working in circular motions and mouth apologising for every hiss and flinch that Charles lets out.

 

“I’m going to make you something to eat and then you’re going to have a nap,” Erik says, passing a hand through Charles’s hair. His mouth descends on the boy’s wounded knee in a deep kiss. Charles inhales sharply. “Okay?”

 

“You’re going to clean up all on your own?”

 

“Yes. Because I know where everything goes and you’re still unwell. Okay?”

 

The thing about Charles is that he’ll always listen to Erik. Even when Erik can see the call of protest bubbling up, Charles sighs and yields. As though he fully believes in this man whom he’s only known for a day or two. This man who’s been married for almost a half a decade and hasn’t even _dreamt_ of adultery. The same man who is unarmed with his wedding ring, but supports a lost, lonely young boy into his bedroom and inside the warmth of his bed.

 

:::

 

Erik does end up giving him soup, but it’s flavoured to Charles’s choice, and helps put him into a three hour sleep. Within those three hours, Erik tames the disarray in the house. A few of his drawers had been opened, contents scattered, and a glass vase broken on the ground with a pool of water surrounding it. A chair had fallen over and a plate lay broken with a speckle of blood blemishing it. But Erik had been meticulous, and leaves no corner or surface amenable to suspicion. Specifically, his wife’s.

 

Then, as though he hasn’t just spent the last few hours bustling about to ensure his wife would have a peaceful return to an orderly home, he climbs into bed with Charles. He strips off his shirt and jeans on the way, clad only in his socks and boxers, before he slips under the covers. Charles mumbles nonsensically as he turns around into Erik’s arms. Erik willingly takes him, even as Charles frowns at how he has perfectly managed to become engulfed in Erik’s embrace.

 

“Hello,” Charles whispers.

 

“Hmm. You’re much better,” he points out, his hand feeling up Charles’s cooler skin. His eyes are a warm blue glow that will always have an enamouring effect, that will always make Erik tremble with no choice but to surrender. The evening is still shy in its approach, and yet Erik feels prepared to drift away into a distant, oblivious place when he looks into the orbs of the boy fitting perfectly into his arms.

 

“I feel even better now,” murmurs Charles, curling closer to dive into every space Erik’s body offers. After more blissfully silent moments, Charles throws his leg over Erik’s hip. Charles freezes. Then brings his leg back down.

 

“Sorry. I didn’t realise.”

 

Erik grins and reaches down through the covers in hunt of his leg. It’s far too incendiary, the way Charles had shied away at the feel of Erik’s bare skin, and then blinked up into Erik’s face as though he was anything _but_ apologetic. So Erik gropes for the thinly clothed flesh of his thigh and cups its warmth as he pulls it up high to his waist. Erik doesn’t slip his hand under the cotton of his bottoms, nor does he move his fingers to splay them over the tempting curve of his rear. As much as he would love to give his thigh a squeeze, then rip off their sheath to see if pale skin has taken notice, he leaves his hand still for the longer length of the night.

 

The rest of the time it’s either interlocked with Charles’s hand or tangled in the thick waves of his hair.

 

:::

 

They only sleep for an hour before the insistent shrill of a mobile phone sounds off around the room. Erik grunts and paws around the bed for his mobile, until he realises that it’s still inside the pocket of his jeans, long disposed on the ground.

 

Charles is woken up by it too, because he rolls off of Erik and onto his side. Erik stretches his arms to relocate the boy, but he shifts farther away.

 

“Your phone’s ringing.”

 

“I _know,”_   he bleats, crawling over in the bed to rest his head across Charles’s belly. “It’ll stop in a while.”

 

Charles sighs and gives Erik a light shove. Erik has to watch from the bed, abandoned, as Charles rises to his feet and lopes around the bed to pursue Erik’s phone. Erik feels a heavy object hit him on the hand. The ringing stops as a buzz takes its place.

 

“I’ll be in the kitchen,” Charles says as he shuts Erik’s door and gaits away. He doesn’t want the privacy, but he respects it.

 

He supposes that he needs it quite a lot when he reads Magda’s text.

 

_I’ll be home tomorrow afternoon._

 

:::

 

Of course, then, Charles would be sitting on the kitchen island drinking orange juice out of an  enormous glass that requires both of his small round hands.

 

“You don’t mind, do you?” he asks, sucking on his bottom lip.

 

Erik walks over to him and takes the glass out of his hand, placing it down on the counter. He ducks his head, chin near his chest, as he swallows. His hands move to very carefully part Charles’s legs as he steps forward between them. The inside of Charles’s fingers are cold when Erik kisses them. The skin of his neck is soft when he kisses it. The corner of his mouth just isn’t enough when he kisses it. His lips press over Charles’s but don’t move, only apply light pressure as he breathes in the smell of citrus. He hears the boy make a soft, pleading noise as his fingers cup Erik’s face. He doesn’t pull Erik closer, only lets Erik feel the texture of his mouth against his. It’s a memory worth embedding, this; his lips are sweet and soft and delicate and plush, they make Erik want to fall to his knees and cry, they make Erik want to be a braver man, they make Erik want to bite and bleed and sigh and sing. He could lose four years because of them, he could gain four better years in spite of them. By now even Charles is hit by Erik’s turmoil as his hands grip Erik with sudden strength and his knees close tightly on either of Erik’s sides. Erik pulls away. He kisses him again. He buries a hand in the boy’s hair and kisses him furiously, making Charles’s heartbeat pulsate in haste under Erik’s index finger when he strokes his neck. Charles opens his mouth, at last, and Erik tilts his head to lick over his bottom lip, then his teeth, then his tongue—

 

Charles’s knee jumps a little and Erik smiles. In fact, he brings his smile into the kiss as he lovingly, rhythmically strokes Charles’s tongue. There’s a breathy gasp before Charles responds with a tilt of his own head – his pursuit isn’t like Erik’s, it’s sloppy and adorable, urgent like a kiss should be, when two mouths are meeting as desperately as theirs are.

 

He doesn’t kiss quietly, he kisses like he’s determined to _project_ his affection. Erik feels drenched with it when their lips part. Only a second passes – wherein their eyes remain shut and Erik’s smile returns – before Charles has pulled him back in. And Charles – Charles kisses like he’s living for it, like the delicate motions of his tongue and lips are what he’s been meaning to give Erik all his life. Charles kisses like he’s lonely—

 

Sad, lonely, starving, orphaned, poor, needy, unwanted.

 

Erik’s eyes feel heavy and his lashes feel damp. The last kiss they share, in that moment, has Charles eliciting a low moan and curling his hands around Erik’s neck. It has Erik shivering and overwhelmed and carefully, discretely, wiping a hand over his eyes.

 

Charles rests his forehead against Erik’s chest and sighs, confirming, that Erik wasn’t very discrete at all.

 

:::

 

“Um—”

 

“She comes back tomorrow.”

 

“ _Oh_.”

 

:::

 

It’s still only six o’clock when Erik switches the television off. His other hand doesn’t move from where it’s carding through Charles’s hair.

 

“I should leave soon.”

 

His head shifts in Erik’s lap to face the older man.

 

“So soon?”

 

“It’d be better to.”

 

Erik feels like a coward when he nods, but he gives his approval anyway. He’s given so little.

 

“May I ask you a question?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“Are you attracted to me?”

 

“Yes. Yes, I am. Very much.”

 

“Does that disgust you?”

 

“It doesn’t. It’s – it’s new, that’s all. Different.”

 

“You’ve never been attracted to a—”

 

“No. Never.”

 

“You must be so confused.”

 

“I’m not. I find you beautiful. It doesn’t need to be categorized. You are beautiful to me. Leave it there.”

 

“Are you sexually attracted to me?”

 

The silence that sets after that is unpleasant, riddled by the way Charles looks up at him with unreadable emotions in his eyes. Erik _hates_ it – eyes as emotive as Charles’s shouldn’t blank out the glint of emotions that surface, especially at a moment where Erik believes he’s written all over with the crux of his feelings. Erik’s half-naked, too, but that barely compares to how revealed he feels when Charles looks up at him, blanketed by impassiveness.

 

“I... I d-don’t know.”

 

Erik can only imagine, with the littlest of effort, how it might feel to make love to Charles.

 

“Don’t you want to _see_?”

 

His reply is inaudible, Charles has rendered him voiceless, so he nods his head once.

 

Charles takes in a deep breath before he warily springs up on his knees on the couch, eyes undoubtedly glazed with intent, and then _burning,_ as the smaller man adjusts his legs on either side of Erik. Breathing becomes the second priority as staring takes precedence; Erik can’t peel his eyes off of Charles as he sits his hips down over Erik’s crotch.

 

Hands grab at his hair and pull his head back, allowing Charles access to his mouth. The brunet is rich with need when he connects their mouths and presses in deep. Their lips smack loudly against each other before their mouths part and Charles wistfully gazes down into Erik’s lidded eyes. Then, as though shredding inhibitions, he looks down at where their bodies intimately meet before he slowly, languidly, moves his hips.

 

He then stops and looks at Erik.

 

Erik can’t imagine what Charles must be seeing. Erik’s chest is scorching and his hips feel weighed down by his arousal. He can barely even keep his eyes open, as much as he does want to see. The boy planted over him braces a hand on the headrest and places the other on Erik’s shoulder. After a heartbeat of indecision, Charles is moving back in for Erik’s lips.

 

His hips move in sharp, shapely movements which he ingeniously emulates inside Erik’s mouth, with his tongue.

 

It should be odd. It should be completely alien and odd, the sensation of having somebody pressing their own hardness down onto Erik’s, but his growing erection doesn’t say so.

 

His pounding heart, his dry mouth, his angled-up hips and his sobs of pleasure certainly don’t say so.

 

The feeling is rapturous; there’s double friction and heat, slickness even through Erik’s boxers and Charles’s cotton bottoms, intensifying the flight to his climax tenfold.

 

Charles’s face, when Erik holds it still to look at it, is screwed in bleeding pleasure – red mouth open in a gasped moan, blue eyes regrettably closed, and brows folded in a crease.

 

The undulations of his hips pick up pace as Erik feels the hand on his shoulder disappear and then, land gently over the swell of his boxers. Erik hisses – not because it feels _new_ or _different_ , but because it’s the boy he adores feeling the most intimate part of his body and it feels _heavenly._

 

Charles bucks his hips forward and Erik feels the prominent bulge press downward to replace the hand. Erik looks down and watches the way Charles grinds his hips expertly to maximise their contact. His eyes roll to the back of his head as he tips it back, mouth left wide open for Charles to explore. He does so with his earlier hunger, and Erik is the happy recipient of Charles’s intoxicating enthusiasm.

 

It’s by the time Erik has reopened his eyes when he catches sight of Charles’s hand disappearing beneath his own waistband. Erik’s eyes widen, hypnotised, a groan stuttering on its way out, as he watches Charles’s hand twist and massage his own cock. Erik feels every movement against his own and breathes out Charles’s name like the single long syllable is the only thing he can utter.

 

Then his orgasm streams through his body and elicits a shudder – it _wrecks_ him, brings him to shout and shiver and draw Charles near to him so he can somehow share every wave and shock of sheer pleasure. Charles throws his arms around Erik’s neck and cries out, continues to, until Erik tightens his hold and clings to the boy with equal imbalance.

 

The cries don’t stop and Erik doesn’t hush him. He hooks a finger into the neckline of the blue jumper and kisses the bruise he created. He can’t kiss any other point of pain. This will just have to suffice.

 

“You were secretly hoping it would be terrible, weren’t you?”

 

The whisper of his voice has Erik pinned, frozen. His hand makes a fist in Charles’s jumper.

 

Charles must be getting all of his answers from that alone.

 

“It’s just that – it’s just,” Charles’s teary voice begins, his own hands clawing at Erik’s shoulders and digging half-moons with his blunt nails. “I wish it could be _me._ ”

 

Again, Erik goes inert. This time a taut meld of guilt and sorrow sits entrenched in his chest, blazing up to his throat and burning him raw.

 

It’s always so much worse when the boy begins to shed tears over Erik’s shoulder and all Erik can do is listen to the louder sound of his heart breaking, the shards sharp as glass. 

 

:::

 

Perhaps if it had been carnal and lust-driven, devoid of passion, then it would’ve been easier to prevent the experience from tethering to his heart. But Charles has had his undeniable effect, he’s broken a piece of Erik and displaced it with himself, and Erik will never be the same again.

 

:::

 

Charles cleans up first. He climbs off of Erik, sticky and spent, and then trudges away to change back into the clothes Erik had seen him in first. The sun is still loitering in the orange sky, unprepared to leave. Erik is grateful for the length of time it will be illuminating Charles’s path home.

 

When Charles is dressed and presentable, he stands at the door with one hand balancing his bag and the other stretching out to pet Neto’s fur.

 

“Wait here for a second,” he mutters, hand raised, before he stumbles dizzily into the bathroom and mops himself up. He had been stained down to his thighs.

 

Charles is still in the hallway when he comes back, his back leant against the wall and his eyes closed. Suddenly, Erik feels all the dread of his departure.

 

“When do you turn twenty-one?”

 

Charles looks confounded by the question. His eyes flash open and his lips seal tightly.

 

“End of next month.”

 

Erik nods and shuffles through the notes in his hands. Charles’s head drops.

 

“What—”

 

“Take it. It’s five hundred.”

 

Gobsmacked, Charles scowls at the money pressed into his hand.

 

“No. No, I can’t. I don’t need it.”

 

“How much is your monthly rent?”

 

This seems to induce fear in Charles’s eyes. Erik shouldn’t feel victorious by it when he does.

 

“Four… four-eighty.”

 

“And how do you expect to make that much within the next month?”

 

Charles swallows and looks away. Erik closes the boy’s hand around the wad of cash. He kisses the fist with gentle lips.

 

“Just take it. I don’t mind.”

 

“But I do.”

 

“Don’t.”

 

“ _Erik._ ”

 

He juts his head back in amusement. Finally.

 

“Finally. You said my name. _Finally_.”

 

Charles blushes to his neck and turns away. The same boy who had been gyrating his lean hips over Erik’s and then beat himself off while being watched and wrung out _obscene_ noises into the shell of Erik’s ear. The same boy bites his bottom lip and looks down at his shoes timidly.

 

Erik laughs.

 

“Do you have a pen? And paper?”

 

He nods and digs into his bag, materializing a pen and a piece of paper hastily torn out of his diary. Erik breathes a sigh of contentment when he spots Charles unceremoniously drop the money inside his bag. Charles offers him both the pen and page, but Erik nods it back to him.

 

“Write down your address.”

 

And then, Erik is lost – he can’t tell if Charles is gawking at him out of awe or indecision. Either way, he places the page upright against the wall and scribbles his address down onto it.

 

As though realising what he’s doing, he steels himself for a moment before he can continue.

 

“I usually go for a morning jog twice a week. I’ll… uh, start going more often.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“What time?”

 

“Six. Work starts at nine.” He glances down at the address handed to him. “The bus gets here at around five past.”

 

“It would take at least forty-five minutes for you to get to my place.”

 

“It takes less time that early in the morning.”

 

“But still…”

 

“I’ll leave earlier then.”

 

“Okay. I’ll wait for you. Every morning.”

 

Charles kisses Erik’s hand once before he strides out through the door.

 

:::

 

Erik spends the rest of his night wondering why he’s never noticed before, that he can’t see the moon from his bedroom window.

 

:::

 

Magda returns while Erik is still asleep. Erik’s managed to sleep into the afternoon, again, but this time without the aid of another’s body. Guilt then, promptly, stabs at him. He shuts his eyes and pretends to be asleep when he hears the jingle of keys get louder.

 

Ear against the pillow, he hears the manic thumping of his heart amplified as he goes rock still. His palms start to sweat. He deliberately even holds his breath.

 

He’s changed the sheets again. They smell of fabric softener. It’s suffocating.

 

“Erik? Honey?”

 

He doesn’t move. Her long-nailed hand is cold from the outside air when she places it on his back.

 

“I’m back.”

 

Erik makes a show of blinking owlishly before he props himself up and turns to look at her. He looks at her, even though he can’t face her.

 

“Hi darling,” he says groggily, scrubbing a hand over his face. “How’re you?”

 

“Not bad. Mom said hello.”

 

“Hello,” he grunts under his breath. His wife looks refreshed and rested, like she couldn’t possibly have done anything to be guilty for. Erik must have the shape of Charles’s fingertips indented into every portion of his skin mercifully touched.

 

“The doctor said she’s getting better. She just needs bed rest,” she says, stepping out of her shoes in the most casual manner, considering what’s just gone on in the house she’s in.

 

A reinvention of a boy’s life, an unsuccessful burglary, and a union of two passionate souls – one of which happens to be the man she’s married. Erik feels something deep inside him twist.

 

If Magda knew, what her husband had done, on the couch they purchased a year ago – would she still be here? Would she still be leisurely taking out the bobby pins from her hair, or would she be crossing the room to throttle Erik with her manicured hands?

 

It’s become so difficult to swallow anyway.

 

“Erik, you _still_ haven’t fixed the crack on the wall!”

 

:::

 

He can’t stop ogling at the clock. He stares, willing the digits to move. His wife – quiet and detached in her slumber – turns onto her stomach and goes stationary again. Erik blinks at the unmoving clock. Another sixty seconds, and then he’ll be up on his feet, endeavouring to feed his heart and betray his wife.

 

:::

 

He flips up his hood and stuffs the paper back into his pocket. The place he’s ended up at is more derelict than he had been expecting, considering where it’s situated.

 

With heavy steps and a twinge in his gut, he approaches the dreary building and boards the stairs. It gets darker as he gets higher up.

 

He reaches the second floor of his lie to his wife. The third door down, allegedly, would lead him to Charles, and the lie would soon turn into something so much more.

 

He doesn’t knock on the door right away. He stands on the doormat, eyes shut, as he prepares himself for his next decision.

 

Away from the lacklustre of his marriage and into the realms of his unremitting desires.

 

:::

 

Charles is there on the first knock.

 

Later, Erik will realise it’s because the bed is an inch away from the door. At the time, when Charles swings the door open and greets Erik with a leap onto his body, limbs enveloping him, it’s because they’ve yearned for each other ceaselessly since they were last together.

 

Erik lifts him higher until Charles is looking down at him, arms folded around his neck and lips blooming in a wide, gorgeous smile.

 

“Hello, Erik.”

 

“Hi, Charles.”

 

“Would you like to come in?”

 

“If you want me.”

 

“Of course I want you.”

 

Before Erik can regain balance and carefully take them into the boy’s visibly cosy residence, Charles cups his face and plants a fervent kiss on his lips. Erik moans a little too loud for the early hours of the day, but Charles seems hell bent on driving out more of Erik’s inappropriate noises by the way he clenches his legs tight around him and initiates thorough kiss after kiss.

 

When they part, Charles’s lips are swollen and red and shinier than his eyes. He licks his lips and presses his forehead onto Erik’s, letting himself get led back inside.

 

:::

 

There are books and posters strewn everywhere. Erik gently unhands Charles on the narrow single bed and gives the room a quick look. It’s miniscule, with only a desk drawer, a closet and a counter top with just a microwave and kettle. At least Charles will be rich soon, he inwardly thinks. At least he can _afford_ to live here until he becomes rich.

 

“I didn’t properly thank you,” Charles muses, body moving to stretch out on the far side of the bed. Erik belatedly realises this is an invitation, and Charles’s abashedly red cheeks are waiting for Erik to accompany him. Erik strips off his hoodie and kicks off his trainers as he descends onto the stiff bed. It’s a good thing they’re both thin and like to lay with the littlest distance between them. “But thank you, Erik. Thank you. For everything.”

 

“It’s alright.”

 

He pulls Charles closer to him again, happy to find their shared warmth hasn’t left either of them, and takes Charles’s thigh up to his waist. Charles laughs softly into Erik’s chest.

 

After a few sobering moments, Charles moves his head back to look up at Erik as he lets Erik rake his hands through his silk-smooth locks.

 

“Is everything okay at home?” he whispers nervously.

 

“Hmm.”

 

Not a no, because Magda is asleep, convinced by Erik’s factitious excursion for exercise. Not a yes, either, because Erik is finding himself exercise only his affection at a place that isn’t their home. In a household where the man sleeps with another – well, can that really be deemed okay?

 

“Do you have to go to University today?”

 

“Yes. My first lecture starts in the afternoon.”

 

Erik cranes his neck to look at his watch. It’s already half-past six.

 

“I’ll have to leave soon.”

 

Even when Charles pouts his lips and kisses his mouth and clings to his waist and kisses his mouth again, not even stopping to wipe the tears that fall off his cheeks—

 

Erik has to leave. Charles says it’ll be more difficult for him, when Erik goes, but the boy is so, very wrong.

 

:::

 

“You’ve started to exercise a _lot_ ,” Magda sleepily remarks, when Erik climbs out from under their covers and heads brusquely for the bathroom.

 

He’s been visiting the boy for five days now.

 

:::

 

“What’s this?” Erik inquires one morning when they’re lying in the rake-thin bed with overlapping, barely covered limbs. One long finger stretches to hover up and down the scar tissue on Charles’s flank.

 

“I got hurt.” He bats Erik’s finger away.

 

“Under your arm? How?”

 

He wants to know because of every part of Charles he’s felt in the dark, there’s never a rough, marred surface. Just taut velvety lines that spin Erik’s mind and make Charles shiver, sometimes giggle, sometimes pause and guide Erik’s hand to be more daring.

 

“Well… No, I. It wasn’t me. My stepfather did it.”

 

Erik immediately straightens.

 

“What did he do?”

 

“It was a long time ago. You needn’t worry. He used to hit me a lot when I was young. This is the only mark that hasn’t faded.”

 

“Really?”

 

“No.”

 

Erik kisses it. He makes a habit of doing so now.

 

The scar is starting to fade.

 

:::

 

One time, Erik almost thinks he’s been caught.

 

As usual, he fights off the covers he shares with his wife and heads for the bathroom. Back inside the room, Magda is awake and staring at him. She watches him change into his gym gear mutedly, from the dim distance. Erik is about to double over to tie his laces, when Magda closes her eyes and goes back to sleep, saying only,

 

“Get some milk. And cat food.”

 

Her voice doesn’t sound deceived or hurt. Erik dredges up a sigh and tells her he will.

 

He does, but only after he’s kissed Charles ruthlessly until the sun’s rise.

 

:::

 

“Magda’s going to be spending the night at her friend’s next Tuesday.”

 

Charles simply nods his head, as evident as it is that he’s internally just as thrilled as Erik is.

 

They share a celebratory kiss before Charles leaves the bed to make Erik something to eat, flippantly telling him he’s been doing too much exercise.

 

Erik doesn’t find it funny but he does enjoy kissing the laughter off of Charles’s lips and bringing him back to that tiny bed made only for their bodies.

 

:::

 

“I talked to Mom today.”

 

Erik looks over his dinner plate and nods.

 

“What did she say?” he separates the bitterness from his voice before he denounces his words.

 

“Just how she desperately wants grandchildren.”

 

“Hmm. I expect nothing less.”

 

“Erik – sweetheart, she’s growing old. Of course she’s going to say stuff like that, regardless of—”

 

“I know, I know,” Erik quips, though his mind is elsewhere. He’s looking at the wooden chess box, wondering about whether he’d be able to somehow take it to Charles tomorrow morning.

 

:::

 

When Charles opens the door, he’s only wearing shorts. His face is wearing a blistering smile and Erik doesn’t waste time to straddle him onto the bed.

 

He’s suddenly so glad he hadn’t snuck out the chess box or the boy could’ve gotten seriously hurt.

 

“I want to try something today,” Charles breathes while Erik peppers kisses down the boy’s neck. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot and I want to try it. If you’d let me.”

 

“Absolutely.”

 

Charles pushes Erik up to sit on the bed next to him as he sits opposite him, also on his knees. Erik wipes his wet mouth with the back of his hand and waits.

 

“Will you take this off?” Charles tugs at the hem of his hoodie. Erik instantly obliges. He assumes Charles approves of the thin white vest he has on underneath because his next words are far too lascivious, even for them.

 

“I want you to put your fingers inside me.”

 

:::

 

By the time Erik has washed his hands – spending far too much time not looking at the two circular lines where his ring isn’t, and why should it be, when he’s out exercising? – and has taken Charles’s tube of lubricant out onto his palm, he realises that it’s really happening.

 

Charles sees him unmoving and glaring hard at the substance in his palm because he advances forth to slick Erik’s fingers _for_ him. Erik swallows and watches the boy’s pale fingers touch his own with expertise he doesn’t want to dwell on. Erik has three moist fingers by the time Charles is hooking his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts and is peeling them off.

 

Erik gives himself a moment to stare. Charles does too. His body is small and muscular and a complementary shape to Erik’s accommodation, but naked – Erik’s mind extols randomly and his lips part. His fingers tremble and itch to touch. He hasn’t even explored every _surface_ of Charles’s body and yet he’s diving inwards.

 

It’s not that Erik’s complaining.

 

“Is it too much? Do you not want to?”

 

Erik’s gut coils when Charles moves to retrieve his shorts, as though embarrassed by his body – or rather, Erik’s reaction to it. But Erik can’t really respond without sounding vulgar, and well, there’s more to them than just that. However, if Charles wants—

 

“I want to.” He takes the shorts and flings them afar. “I want to do it. Will it feel good for you?”

 

“If… if we can get it right.”

 

“We will.”

 

“I’ll guide you.”

 

“Okay. You’re beautiful.”

 

“Oh. Right.”

 

“I mean it.”

 

“I think you do.”

 

“I do.” He quickly adds, “You’re extremely beautiful.”

 

Charles’s blush reaches every part of his body. Erik is very proud to notice this.

 

“Okay. Um. Your hand, please.”

 

“All yours.”

 

Erik smiles and Charles does the same as he takes the proffered hand. Charles carefully folds down most of his fingers, leaving only the index finger out. Erik swallows.

 

Charles moves closer on his knees and parts them, before he pulls Erik’s hand down underneath him. Erik submissively gives Charles power to his hand and finds that his finger is actually, now, rubbing his wet pucker.

 

“Wow.”

 

“What?”

 

“That. It’s. Good grief.”

 

Charles chuckles warmly and holds Erik by his wrist with a hand as he pulls him closer. His other hand is guiding Erik’s finger inside the hot entrance and leaves it there. Erik purses his lips and looks down at where half his forearm has disappeared. He feels the heat surrounding his finger, the stretch of skin so intimate, and imagines that tightness around his cock. He bites down on his lip.

 

“You can move your finger. S-Slowly…”

 

Erik does. He protrudes it, juts it in and out with careful languor, and then pauses to look at Charles’s face.

 

“Is it hurting you?”

 

“Just a little. But it’s good. I like it. Keep going.”

 

Erik feels Charles’s hand around his wrist tighten when he lets his other finger trace a gentle line near the curve of his arse.

 

“Put it in.”

 

“What?”

 

“Put the other finger in.”

 

Then Charles takes Erik’s longer middle finger and dives it deep inside him. He makes Erik scissor his fingers and near enough screams.

 

“Third.”

 

“Fuck.”

 

“You feel that?” he gasps, moaning out an exhale before he sticks Erik’s fingers in deep and makes Erik rub repeatedly over one spot in particular.

 

“Yes…”

 

“Stroke it.”

 

Erik complies, if only to hear the moans and guttural groans of encouragements. The whispers of his name and the demands to never, ever stop.

 

“That’s my prostate. It f-feels good… _so_ good… when you touch it. Yes, do that again.”

 

Now Charles is rocking his hips and driving Erik’s fingers in deeper. Erik can’t see any part of his hand, now. He moans too, despite himself. It makes Charles smirk in between his incoherent yells of Erik’s name. Charles’s cock is fully swollen, and Erik would touch it the way he does his own if he isn’t worried about Charles waking up the entire borough from the feel of overstimulation.

 

Charles doesn’t tell Erik when he comes. When he does, he hears it and feels it but doesn’t know Charles is shaking from his release until he notes a small pale hand cup the tip of his cock and take the seed into his palm.

 

They’re both messy and disorientated when Erik removes his hand carefully out from inside Charles and lets the boy fall down into Erik’s arms. Erik is only able to curl one arm around the boy to soothe him. The other sticks out awkwardly. Charles takes that hand and kisses Erik’s wrist. Erik kisses his shoulder, licks his waning bruise, and then pulls Charles to the bathroom with him. They clean off the remnants of Charles’s pleasure and Erik asks to be excused. Charles only knowingly glances down at Erik’s tented crotch before he places a chaste kiss to Erik’s lips and leaves him to his own devices.

 

He doesn’t forget to whisper in Erik’s ear, before he goes,

 

“Think of me.”

 

:::

 

When he’s unable to go one morning it’s because Magda stops him. She pulls him back by his undershirt and tells him to stay. She kisses his temple and the feeling fills him with a fitful urge to accept the kiss, stay in bed and resume his life with his loyal wife.

 

He aches for the entire day and when asked, at work, if he thinks Arsenal will win the match tonight, he bellows at the young intern to leave him alone.

 

:::

 

Charles does forgive him for not coming. Erik stares at his mouth as he jabbers on about how his wife is his priority.

 

He looks at his lips and—

 

Erik can _swear_ that Magda has lipstick that very same colour. His kiss enhances the colour.

 

:::

 

The next morning, when they’re lying in bed together – Erik first plucks a book out from under him – he actually listens carefully to what Charles says. Because now, he’s perked up to sit on the bed and locks Erik’s eyes with his own, completely stern.

 

“I want you to make me a promise.”

 

“Charles…”

 

“Please?”

 

“What?”

 

“I want you to promise me that you’ll start trying again with your wife.”

 

“Trying…”

 

“Yes. For a baby.”

 

:::

 

After an hour of solemn silence, Erik asks with a desert-dry voice,

 

“Why?”

 

“Because that’s when this will stop. The day you find out she’s pregnant – which you will, Erik, you will – that will be the day we stop this. You’ll stop coming to see me.”

 

:::

 

They don’t even come to a compromise. Erik has a tearful journey back home.

 

It’ll be Monday night tonight. Tomorrow Erik will have Charles over.

 

Tonight Magda and Erik will have a long talk.

 

:::

 

His wife looks surprised when he tells her. She runs her hand up and down Erik’s arm and tries for a weak smile.

 

“We’ll try. I want to. I really want to.”

 

“We don’t have to hurry,” he swallows. “It’s not about your mother and—”

 

“I know. But we’ve waited too long. It’ll be fine this time. Won’t it?”

 

“It will. Definitely. We will… this time we will. We’ll have a baby this time.”

 

:::  

 

Tuesday night is sickening.

 

Firstly, they agree on everything. The moment Charles suggests they order Chinese, Erik inwardly realises that he couldn’t possibly have made a more agreeable choice. Entirely content, they order Chinese, and set the table as they wait. Charles wordlessly goes to take a shower, dropping a kiss on Erik’s cheek on his way.

 

Heart crippled with conflict, he sits on the couch and waits for the food to arrive. Neto occupies the rest of the couch and splays himself out. It seems as though he too has stopped mourning and has surrendered to Charles and his affection.

 

When Charles comes out, dressed and ruffling his hair, the door bell rings. Erik pays the woman standing with their dinner and lets her keep the change when Charles passes by and catches her eye. He quickly shuts the door.

 

Then, as though their quiet, flavoursome meal isn’t satisfying enough, Charles becomes possessed by the need to display awful table manners once he decides that the noodles on Erik’s plate – or mouth, rather, as Erik watches the blue eyes flutter in appreciation – are far more interesting than the very same ones on his own.

 

He leans forward on the table and catches the tail-end of the string of noodles hanging out from between Erik’s lips. He latches on and sucks his end as Erik, amused, does the same. Their lips crush together as Erik swiftly swallows the contents in his mouth to concentrate on the lips moving against his, flavoured in hoisin sauce, and so eager to lick into his mouth.

 

Thankfully, Charles stands up and comes around the table to sit on Erik’s lap, straddling his legs, as he reconnects their mouths and continues to kiss the taste of the food out of Erik’s mouth and brand it with the essence of his own.

 

Just like that, Erik’s appetite transforms. He drops the chopsticks wedged between his fingers and pulls Charles closer, ravelling the small, hot body of his lover inside the loops of his arms. Charles scoots closer towards Erik and the friction of his movements is _delicious,_ food and troubles and delivery women all forgotten. Erik grips him like he’s about to run away, holds him like if he tried hard enough, he could embed the boy inside himself so he’d never have to leave him. He could try.

 

He gives him a squeeze.

 

Charles whimpers and pulls his head back, nuzzling his nose into Erik’s neck. Erik kisses his sweet-smelling, hair and closes his eyes, feeling Charles’s back muscles as his body curls into Erik’s, thighs pressing against Erik’s, and breath gusting, “ _Erik_.”

 

He kneads Charles’s flanks in gentle movements, revelling in the succession of kisses Charles is generously showering down on Erik’s neck and repeatedly on his lips. Erik hums in approval at the sensation of ingenious red lips and tugs Charles closer by the globes of his denim-clad arse, until their torsos press together. Charles sighs and drops his head atop Erik’s shoulder, placing one final deep kiss on Erik’s throat.

 

He may never want to let go of him. Charles’s weight closes around him like a perfectly fitting piece congealed to become a bigger, _completed_ part of him. As much as he should feel like a burden, he sits over him, slack with the comfort of being in the arms of a loved one, and Erik can find nothing more sickeningly perfect than the impression of the boy’s body against his. _To have and to hold,_ his mind echoes, tainting the happiness he had momentarily gleaned.

 

Momentarily. He mulls over that for a while. These days, _momentarily_ stretches to encompass most moments with the boy in his arms.

 

He’s unaware of the fact that he’s been rubbing soothing circles over his back until he notices how inert the body pressed against his is. The freckled, shower-scented arms swung around his neck are stationary, and his breathing is even. Erik pats his shoulder, but he’s still motionless. He kisses his neck and gets nothing. Finally, he calls his name, nails skittering over the stripe of skin exposed by his ridden up shirt. He’s usually ticklish there, but on this occasion, he’s unresponsive in his blissful sleep.

 

Erik kicks the table backwards and places one hand on the boy’s head, cradling it, while the other supports him by his backside. He stands, careful and balancing their weight, and manoeuvers around the chair to get through the hallway. When Charles’s head lays still on Erik’s shoulder, he moves his hands to grip his thighs, hiking them around his own waist. Charles’s arms remain folded around his neck as he walks them over to his bedroom.

 

At the bed’s side, he tries to figure out a way of depositing Charles on the bed without waking him. He is, after all, tangled around him like a leech. A very lovable leech. Sighing, he precariously sits down on the bed the way they had been at the dining table, and then lays down, Charles in tow. It’s awkward at first: he feels slightly strangled, and neither of them are wearing clothes appropriate for sleeping, but Erik is more reluctant to dislodge Charles and have the cold hair hug him instead. Besides, Charles is sleeping so peacefully – Erik can never acquire peace like that – and after a few shifts of limbs, he finds Charles’s body drapes over him like a blanket. Like a beautiful blanket he wants to remain swept under, and wants to kiss and kiss until its worn and tired, like this, limp on Erik and covering his body like its modelled to be his and _only_ his.

 

He remains lain, wishing there were fewer layers between them. Awake, Charles would never approve of being sprawled over Erik like a child. Asleep, Erik can relish the feel of his entire weight pulsing serenely over his own and lulling him to sleep as their bodies align from top to toe.

 

Charles’s hair tickles his neck when Erik stretches an arm to flick the bedside lamp off. The boy stirs and Erik stills.

 

“m’Sorry,” he mumbles, rubbing his soft face into Erik’s neck. “m’squashing you.”

 

“No – it’s okay,” he disclaims, quickly latching back onto Charles’s lithe body, as he wriggles away to shift his weight elsewhere. Charles moans in protest when he’s locked into Erik’s hold. Persistent, Erik snakes a leg around him to prevent him from sliding away.

 

“I’m heavy.”

 

“You’re not. I love you.”

 

:::

 

When he’s welcomed into wakefulness, he can’t open his eyes. He slowly realises it’s because lips are being pressed gently against his eyelids.

 

:::

 

Erik takes Magda out for dinner. Tonight will be the night they start trying again.

 

He takes her to a restaurant an hour’s drive away from where they live, out in the heart of London’s more rampant, ostentatious side. He doesn’t enjoy the food. But Magda thanks him repeatedly, and when they get home, she heads for the bathroom with her ovulation prediction kit. She comes out with a smile on her face.

 

 _Oh,_ Erik thinks, as he guides his wife onto the bed and uses his left hand to unzip her dress. _This is really going to happen. We’re going to make a baby._

_Charles is going to leave me._

 

:::

 

He wonders, sometimes, if it had indeed been Charles.

 

Charles to take out to fancy, expensive restaurants for dinner. Charles’s marriage to him shining radiantly on his hand. Charles laying in bed next to him, staring dazedly at the ceiling and listing off baby names.

 

:::

 

It’s been two weeks now.

 

Erik’s head is about to split into two, and not even those pieces would be equal.

 

:::

 

Charles kisses down Erik’s stomach and stops at the waistband of his tracksuit bottoms. He pushes his lips down, hard, onto Erik’s hipbone.

 

“You must be so tired,” Charles mumbles into Erik’s skin. His teeth rake over Erik’s delicate flesh. He cries out.

 

“ _Shh_ ,” Charles says, moving up to cover Erik’s mouth with his curled palm. “You’re too loud.”

 

Erik kisses his hand when Charles keeps it there. He doesn’t remove it as he continues to talk, his leg rubbing leisurely over Erik’s crotch.

 

“I got full marks in the quiz yesterday. My professor said he’s very proud of me.”

 

Erik raises his eyebrows, genuinely stunned, as he makes a muffled noise of surprise.

 

“Are you proud of me?”

 

Before Erik can nod his head, Charles takes his head and moves it up and down. He laughs at his own actions with abandon, but Erik doesn’t.

 

He sees no humour in the situation – Charles may laugh, but does he realise that he’s telling _Erik_ about his academic progress – Erik, the man who cheats on his wife in the mornings and then goes home to her in the nights? The same Erik, who is the _only_ one in Charles’s life, the _only_ one he can share himself with. This treacherous, disloyal Erik will be the one who is under Charles’s oath to leave the boy once his family happily expands and will continue living a life he is undeserving of.

 

Charles will be twenty-one soon, rich, and no longer a victim of his stepfather’s malice, but will he still have somebody to inform of his scholastic achievements? Someone to kiss his hand the way Erik is?

 

Then, at some point – lay on the bed, stare dazedly at the ceiling, and list off baby names with?

 

:::

 

Erik isn’t a coward, and he cares about Magda. He cares about Charles, too, but Charles isn’t the one who comes running up to him with a pregnancy test in hand and an astonished smile.

 

Charles is the one he leaves a note for, slipping it ever so quietly under his door, as he goes to purchase his wife a bouquet of flowers.

 

_Come over on Wednesday. Don’t be too late._

_I’ll be waiting for you._

_Erik._

 

:::

 

The door is knocked at six o’clock. Much, much earlier than expected.

 

Erik pushes his seat back and rises to go open the door. He stands in the corridor, inhaling air he probably won’t even need, as he finally, opens his eyes and then the door.

 

Charles is there, bag swung diagonally over his broad chest, shirt hugging his body, and cardigan tied around his hips. He gives Erik a lazy, wry smile, his red lips curling up high to his cheekbones. A pale hand runs over his hair. He can’t wait any longer after that – he kisses Erik, rough and needy, angling his head from side to side and moaning unabashedly into Erik’s mouth. Erik should expect Charles to jump up to wrap his legs around his waist, but it comes as a shock and makes him lose balance and stumble backwards—

 

And into his wife’s view.

 

:::

 

Erik doesn’t look; can’t look. He shuts his eyes.

 

But when Charles sees, he draws in a shaky gasp that only Erik can hear. Tardily, he slips off Erik and down onto his feet. _Erik isn’t a coward,_ so he opens his eyes to look at the boy. His hands have balled up into fists. Blue eyes have gone cold and distant, and milky white skin has gone ghastly pale.

 

Magda looks much worse. She glares at Charles with soaked, abhorring eyes. Erik swallows.

 

The chair creaks against the ground. It’s piercing. Maybe Erik had been wrong, maybe the following _silence_ is the worst sound to exist.

 

Erik has masterfully managed to deceive them both. That must be a feat.

 

Magda walks like she’s dragging heavy chained feet. She hasn’t even batted a lid as her eyes remain levelled on Charles.

 

“I… _really,_ didn’t expect this,” Magda whispers, coming to stand in front of Charles. Charles probably doesn’t mean to take a step back, make himself look fearful and Magda formidable, but he does, and attaches himself to the wall. Then, as though going from zero to hundred, she yells, “Some _fifteen_ year old _boy_?!”

 

Charles winces and turns his head to the side. Magda takes in loud, difficult breaths, as though she’s hyperventilating from the mere sight of Charles.

 

“Magda,” Erik says, voice small. Blood pounds in his ears, deafening him. “You told me you’d be calm…”

 

“How the _HELL_ am I supposed to be calm?! You _cheated_ on me with some teenage rent boy while your wife had been away looking after her sick mother! You think I’d – I’d be _calm_?!”

 

Everything blurs. His vision of Charles blurs, though he can see the boy hold his head in his hands, hurting. He can just barely see his pregnant wife wheezing, spittle flying out of her mouth as she holds the wall to support herself. Erik presses a hand over his forehead.

 

His knees tremble, but he keeps himself upright. The yellow light from the fireplace makes him want to retch.

 

“I admit: I haven’t been around as much. But you can understand, can’t you?” Before Erik can decisively nod his head, she continues, voice spiteful. “First Anya, and then my mother’s health. You can understand why I haven’t been around, _can’t_ you?” Then she pauses and looms over Charles, their faces inches apart. When he flinches, something inside Erik breaks furthermore. “At least _I_ hadn’t gone off to _fuck_ another guy!”

 

That’s when Erik realises that Magda has pushed Charles into the wall. Charles slips, saving himself by bracing a hand on the wall.

 

“Magda it’s not his fault—”

 

“No,” a hoarse voice interjects, but it isn’t Magda’s. It’s Charles, adjusting his bag as he brushes a hand over his eyes. “It is. It’s all my fault.”

 

Magda and Erik both look away from the floor to the boy. Charles continues to stare down at it.

 

“It’s all my fault. He told me he’s married. Told me everything. But I was too selfish to care.”

 

Erik shuts his eyes, bravery be damned.

 

“I initiated it. Erik was just being kind.”

 

Magda scoffs.

 

“I s-swear. This is all my doing. If anyone deserves to be punished, it’s me.”

 

“Oh?” she jeers contemptuously. “Erik isn’t a _child_. Cut this bullshit. You can’t be telling me you _forced_ him. If he didn’t want to he would’ve told you.”

 

“We just,” he starts, looking at Erik like the boy who’s just missed the last bus home and is ordained for a night in the rain. Looking desperate, lonely, sad. “It wasn’t anything serious. You’ve got to understand.

 

“Erik saved my life. I just – I couldn’t… I’m sorry for what we’ve done, but I’m _alive_ because of him. You’re so lucky to have him. You _must_ forgive him. He’ll – he’ll be a great father, he really will. He cares so much about the people who need him. He’ll make a _wonderful_ father. Please forgive him.”

 

Magda’s eyes are stones, and she chooses to keep them fixed on Charles as she critically assesses his words. Her hand is on her stomach.

 

“He doesn’t love me,” his voice trembles on every word. Erik looks down at his feet. “I mean nothing to him. _Nothing_. He loves you. You. Just you. He’ll never leave you. This… all of this was a terrible mistake and it’s all my fault and I promise, God, I _promise_ that I’ll never _ever_ come in your lives ever again. I’ll leave – and – and it’ll be like I never existed. Erik will _love_ you and commit to you and be the p-perfect husband, I swear it. I swear it. Please take him back. He loves you.”

 

:::

 

Charles doesn't say a word after that. He separates himself from the couple as silence roams the space. 

 

It goes one for too long. There is so much space between them. 

 

Erik knows that Charles looks at him, waiting for a glance, but Erik resolutely keeps his eyes on his wife.  _His priority._

 

:::

 

Magda had already cried at the table. Erik knows and sees more is waiting to come, a whole new stream of emotions for a whole new confession, so when they do finally come back – Erik is there, holding her.

 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, pathetically, into her hair. His wife shakes her head, knocking a fist into his chest as she sniffles. “I’m so so sorry.”

 

“It’s just that,” she sobs, hands clawing into Erik’s shirt and twisting the material, “I don’t want to have to raise two children all on my own.”

 

Charles’s eyes have widened. He wipes a hand over his entire face.

 

“You won’t. You don’t have to forgive me, but please know that I’m sorry and that I’ll do anything for our children. Anything. I don’t want you to have to do it on your own.”

 

“And I don’t _want_ to, but—”

 

“Magda I promise. I promise, I’ll never lie to you ever again. For your sake, for our children’s sake. Please. I’m so sorry.”

 

“Erik…”

 

Then the husband and wife pour over each with their regretful cries, Erik kissing away her tears and Magda letting him.  

 

Nobody notices the sad, lonely boy leave. Nobody ever does.

 

He has his own tears, but as it begins to rain, there’s no way to tell the difference.

 

:::

 

It takes months to heal.

 

:::

 

Erik fixes the crack in the wall. He even builds a new crib, and it’s a larger one with a mobile, built for two sleepy twins.

 

Erik treats Magda to a moonlit dinner every week until the children are born, and they are healthy dolls, even when they scream through the night to keep their mother and father awake.

 

It’s such a blessing to be reminded.

 

:::

 

“What do you think of _Pietro_?”

 

“It’s interesting. I like it. Then what about _Wanda_ if it’s a girl? I like that one.”

 

“I quite like it too. I guess we’ll see which one, then.”

 

:::


End file.
